Confusion of the senses
by coadhpgg
Summary: Peeta Mellark has always been different, he has confusion of the senses, synaethesia the doctors called it, he could hear colors , see music and taste names. one other thing he can do is see auras, and something hes learnt from living all his life in district twelve ,if anything, is that everyone has the same color aura, grey. until he meets a girl, her aura is deep purple
1. Chapter 1

_**Note: I hope you like this, I randomly thought it up while reading the secret series (read them they are really good) I don't have synaesthesia myself so if anybody has it please share your experiences, It will really help also, please don't get offended if you have synaesthesia, peeta has a very extreme and probably made up form of synaesthesia its basically all the forms of it all jumbled up, but anyway, I'm rambling, please read and review!**_

Peeta Mellark has always been different. He knew it, his parents knew it, and his brothers knew it. He had confusion of the senses. Synaesthesia the doctors called it, his senses were mixed up. He could hear letters, see smells and taste names. for example, the letter A was red, C was yellow and O was purple, this got quite annoying sometimes, as it meant he was failing math and English, or at least he likes to think synaesthesia was the reason, it was probably because he was really bad at said subjects.

One advantage, if any, of him having synaesthesia was that he could see people's aura, that's what he told his parents, but they just think he's making it up. An aura is a light glow that emits of people, and not just certain people either, everyone. And one thing he's learnt about auras is that everyone in district twelve has the same colour aura, grey. Sure, there are variations of what shades of grey different people are, his brother Rye had a light grey aura, slightly yellow, that's how peeta could tell that he was fun loving and slightly mischievous, his father had an almost blue aura (but still grey) that's how Peeta knew his father had a kind heart. His mother's aura was such a dark grey it was almost black, and I'm sure that you don't need me to say what that told Peeta about her personality.

And so, when our story starts, Peeta is kneading dough behind the bakery, today is a somewhat special day for Peeta, him having recently turned eleven years old, it was the first time he was allowed to deal with the trades, his father, before now had taught him everything there was to know about trading, he now knew how much bread to give people, who to take trades from and how to haggle (although he wouldn't be haggling unless the deal was really unfair, as most of the people were seam and needed the food) so as you can imagine he was extremely excited any hyper when the bell rang signalling a trader was at the back door, he rushed to the trader, completely abandoning his dough and gripped the brass handle, his heart pounding and circles still swimming around his eyes, like ripples in water,(which was the normal thing his synesthetic brain saw when the doorbell rang) and pulled the door open, and tried not to look disappointed when Delly's smiling face greeted him, as, of course it would be rude

"Hi Peeta!" she squealed a creamy white mist pouring out of her mouth and the taste of sugar filling Peetas.

"Hey Delly." He replied flashing a sort of fake smile.

"Do you want to come out and play?" she asked, and more sugar filled Peetas mouth

"No." the word came out of his mouth before it occurred to him that it might have sounded rude so he quickly added,

" I meant, I'm bit busy and a doctor might be coming over to help with my synaesthesia." that was a lie, and he felt a bit bad about it as he watched Delly's slightly chubby figure and light grey aura walk away after bidding him goodbye. She was the only person outside his family that knew about his synaesthesia, he didn't trust anyone else, she might have not guessed, he looked and acted no different to any other eleven year old. But he kind of had to explain it to her after he accidently told her that her name tasted nice.

Time passed and peeta began to worry that no traders would come. When the doorbell finally rang again, he was pacing up and down the kitchen, while the dough he was meant to be kneading went dry and lumpy. The sense of de ja vu came to him as yet again; he rushed to the door while purple ripples swam across his eyes. Gripping the brass handle he thrust he door open, cringing at the bang it made when it hit the fridge and he girl who stood in front of him raised her eyebrows.

Looking at the girl again, he almost did a comical over dramatic double-take. She looked about his age and amazingly beautiful with stormy grey eyes, full pink lips, olive skin and silky hair in a braid down her shoulder, but that was not the strangest thing about her, the strangest thing was her aura, it was not grey, like everyone else in twelve, it was a deep purple and slightly blue, peeta know from experience that blue meant she had a kind heart. But he had yet to discover what deep purple meant.

"Can I see your father?" she asked in her beautiful, musical voice, the taste of strong, but sweet mint instantly filling his mouth.

"Are you trading?" he said, surprised at how normal his voice sounded "because I'm handling the trades today." He noted that if he was trying not to sound cocky, he'd failed, miserably.

"um…okay, and yes I am trading." she sounded slightly nervous as she handed him her game bag, which after looking inside, peeta saw contained three squirrels and a rabbit. Immediately he worked out that her haul should earn her one medium sized loaf of bread and one small one. Taking a paper bag he picked up the bread along with and extra loaf of bread and four cheese buns.

"What's your name" he asked randomly while putting the bread in the bag

"Katniss." Came her cautious reply, Hmm… Katniss, Peeta thought. It was a green name and he liked the way her name tasted, it tasted even better than Delly's name!

"I'm Peeta." He said while he handed her the bag of baked goods. His heart pounded as he watched her grey eyes peek inside

"Oh no! " She exclaimed "this is too much!"

"It's okay, I got a bit carried away and baked too much bread, take it." Another lie. This brought his grand total of lies for that day to two. He told himself it didn't matter, what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. But he was getting increasingly nervous as her grey eyes searched his blue ones, maybe she could sense lies! It wasn't too crazy of a thought, he, could see auras, that seemed crazy it you didn't understand it and perhaps her strange purple aura meant she was a lie detector! His heart was pounding by the time she looked up and all his worries all faded when the sides of her lips quirked up into a warm smile,

"thank you" she almost whispered, it was weird, these two words seemed to set her aura alight, deep oranges and reds flickered around its edges, covering the purple up but not completely, it almost looked like she was a flame, flickering in the darkness as she half walked half ran away from the bakery.

Peeta ambled away from the door, almost reluctantly. His thoughts whirling around in his head like the tornados he'd heard about in the other districts. Katniss, the girl with the purple aura. Katinss the girl with the fiery aura. Katniss the girl on fire. Katniss mellark. Peeta found he liked the sound of that.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Okay hi, im really busy at school so i cant update everyday sorry *sad face* but anyway, you might have guessed but i'm from the UK , so there are a few English words, just to explain, primary school is like elementary school in america and secondary school is like middle school and high school mashed up into one. if there are any words i missed out and you want explained then pm me! :)**

Peeta twirled around in the kitchen with a huge smile on his face the next morning, slightly dramatically. I mean if you would have seen him, you would have thought he was in love or something. He looked around, marvelling at every colour his synaesthesic brain made him see, thinking that he was lucky, no one else he knew saw the world how he did.

Peetas father walked into the kitchen after yet another sleepless night after his wife had forced him on to the sofa, and saw peeta twirling around, he chuckled slightly, his youngest son had been known for being over dramatic, and sensitive, that was probably the reason his best friend was a girl. He grabbed a glass of sour goat's milk for him and peeta and pulled his son down on the chair opposite his on the wooden dining table.

"Alright son, who left you a million coins?" he laughed, peeta looked confused for a second then smiled,

"I'm in love!" he sang, beaming

"Aw, finally seen the pretty girl Delly is, have you?" peeta looked at his father, horrified, his mouth wide open in an O shape

"Ewwww no!" he moaned in reply

"Okay then who?"

"She came trading yesterday!" he beamed "she's so pretty! She has the prettiest grey eyes, and silky brown hair! Almost black!"

"So she's from the seam?" Peetas father asked, frowning, his mother won't be very happy about that

"Yes dad, but I thought you said seam and merchant were no different"

"I did, but your mother thinks otherwise." There was an awkward silence for a while, and Peetas father, who was completely against awkward silences with his sons felt the need to fill it.

"What's her name?" he asked, slightly more serious now

"Katniss." Came Peetas reply. He coughed some sour milk spewed from his mouth. Katniss? There was only one Katniss he knew of, but it couldn't be, right?

"Everdeen?"

"What's an Everdeen?" peeta asked looking up innocently

"Nothing, you should get to school."

"But dad there's half an hour left to ge-"

"Go to school." His father snapped, and peeta immediately grabbed his bag and ran out, scared. His father didn't snap at him often, and Mr Mellark felt a little guilty about it. He sat down on the lumpy sofa and sighed, the lumpy sofa sagged, as if reflecting his mood, he told himself he'd apologise later. But then again, he knew, he never would.

Peeta almost ran to school, lights from the nearby houses let out spirals, small at the top, and getting bigger near the ground. , peoples auras, merged together and it looked like district twelve was in one huge cloud, he couldn't stop himself looking for a deep purple aura among the grey mist.

Peeta wasn't concentrating on where he was going, but somehow, his legs subconsciously carried him to school, he looked at the big sign at the top of the school that read "DISTRICT TWELVE MERCHANT QUARTER PRIMARY SCHOOL" the sign didn't have all the pretty pictures of teachers and students drawn by four year olds, or a motto, but it was colourful. At least, that is, in Peetas mind, Delly told him that to "normal" people the sign was just black and white. He guessed she was right, even though it was colourful; the sign seemed to carry the gloominess of the colour black.

Being thirty minutes early, the playground was almost deserted, save a few kids, wandering around like list sheep, or some friends chatting away while colours poured out of their mouths. Peeta wandered to the back of the school, so he didn't look too keen, the last thing he needed was people calling him a nerd. And somehow, he ended up at the wall, it wasn't just a wall, oh no, it was the wall, that divided the primary school from the secondary school. It was also infamous for being the "hang out" area where all the "cool" sixteen year olds hung out.

Peetas thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone playing the flute, he followed the sound along the wall, it almost hypnotised him, like a fairy-tale he'd heard where music hypnotised some rats out of a rat infested city. Peeta almost felt like a rat, dragging his fingers across the wall as he followed the sound. He stopped when he ran into a bunch of 16 year olds, smoking something. He thought it might be cigarettes, because the smoke was purple and, well, cigarette smoke is always purple.

"Hey! You!" peeta spun round to see a red headed girl, grinning manically in his direction

"What?" he replied, noticing her and her friends auras were all dark grey

"what ya doin' on my wall?"

"Umm… I thought I heard a flute…?" he said, almost questioned

"Really!" she said, with fake interest, peeta noticed her screwing the top off her bottle of water, but, as he always does, he noticed a second to late, and the bottle of water was dumped on his head, sending a shiver down his spine. He looked down at his hands, which were sparkling yellow, as they always were when he got wet and looked up at the teenagers, then he ran away, not caring about whether he looked "uncool" he was more interested in weather the water dripping down his face was concealing his tears well enough.

The sound of the school bell and the ripples it created, were like music to peeta, he was glad to be out of that hellhole of a playground. He almost ran into his classroom, where his teacher and Delly, who was already sat down, eyed him curiously. He took his usual seat next to her and stared at the seat on the other side to him, the only spare seat in the class room, sighed, and plopped down on his chair

"Why are you all wet?" asked Delly

"I…erm…uhhh….fell….in the…umm…bath!" He replied, he wasn't sure if he sounded convincing or not, but he guessed he didn't, because Delly's aura turned slightly darker, as it always did when she was annoyed

"okay." She said, you see that's what peeta liked about her, she didn't ask too many questions.

A few minutes later, the teacher finally decided it was time to stand up and address the class; she had to tear herself away from a book she was engrossed in.

"Now class, settle down." She began; no one understood why she said "settle down," no one was talking.

"Before we begin registration we have a new student joining our class, I ask you to be very helpful and considerate, you all know how scary it is joining a new school." To be honest, peeta didn't really care, until that is, he saw a deep purple glow outside the door.

"Come on now, don't be shy." Said the teacher, and she stepped out, beautiful as ever, with familiar grey eyes, pink lips and dark hair, her aura seemed brighter than last time.

Katniss.

"Take a seat where there's a space." Said the teacher

Peeta smiled, the only spare seat was next to him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: hi :P thank you if you reviewed! You make me happy :D so thanks micmic022, the jumble book and londonjewel. Thanks alas de fuego for reviewing twice XD you're so cool **** and special shout out to shesaysreal, for being my first reviewer and being generally awesome. Your review literally made me smile really wide, I'm not kidding, it made my day!**

**Can we get ten reviews for this chapter?**

**Don't do it for me, do it for the giraffes in need of very long scarves this autumn :D **

One hour left of school, and Katniss hadn't uttered a single word. Peeta couldn't concentrate on his work; he always ended up glancing at her, hoping she wouldn't catch him. Twice, he'd told himself he'd speak to her; he always ended up saying one syllable of the word and looking like an idiot. But now, there is one hour left of school, he has one hour to gather up every drop of courage inside him and say hi. He told himself it would be now.

"Hi, you're Katniss, right?" that was a stupid thing to say, of course it was Katniss, it was the only word he'd been thinking about, for the past 17 hours, thirty three minutes, and 17 seconds. But it didn't matter, he almost whispered it, he was positive she didn't hear him, so he blushed, looked down and got on with his maths.

"Hi Peeta." His head whipped around, that voice tasted like mint; there was only one voice that tasted like mint.

"I saw you at the bakery the other day." She continued, Peeta fumbled for words, he was meant to be good with words, but she had taken his voice and screwed it up like paper.

"Thank you," she went on, "for the bread… it was really…tasty." She said, giving him a small smile

"You're welcome." Peeta finally chocked out "we had your squirrels for dinner, they were really nice." The last part ended up sounding really awkward, as he didn't know whether she was being serious or sarcastic about his bread being nice.

"Oh," she said "I don't make them nice I only shoot them."

"Shoot them?" this got Peetas attention, not only was she beautiful, but she could shoot stuff, that would be very handy if there was ever a zombie apocalypse (which, mind you, Peeta was very prepared for)

"Yes, how else would I catch them?" she questioned, her aura shining

"I just thought, you caught them in traps or something." He replied feeling slightly foolish

"Snares," she corrected "and I'm not very good with snares, it's my friend gale that's good with them." Gale? That was a boy's name, and he got to go to the woods with her, and they would be on their own! Disturbing images quickly formed in Peetas head of her and this faceless Gale boy kissing, and he quickly pushed them away, he didn't care, Gale probably had a dark grey aura.

"When me and him are in the woo-"her voice cut off and she covered her mouth with her hands, when she spoke next it was with a whisper,

"I just talked about the woods out loud! Dad said he could get arrested if the wrong person knew!" Peeta began to feel worried, Katniss' aura was a darker purple, he guessed she was really scared. But when he looked around the classroom, people were chatting away, some to people on the other side of the room, a swirl of colours began forming above their heads.

"I don't think anyone noticed…" Peeta began, "if they did, I don't think anyone cares." Katniss' aura turned lighter

"Really?"

"yeah." He said, hoping desperately that it was the truth.

"This is random, and don't take this the wrong way, but why are you here" Peeta questioned, hoping he didn't sound too rude.

"Apparently, I'm too clever to be in the seam school." Katniss replied drily

Katniss and Peeta talked for a while, Peeta was growing increasingly happy and his smile was growing increasingly wide, and he was sad when the teacher stopped the class to ask if anyone knew the valley song. Peeta didn't expect anyone to raise their hand; no one did in music assembly, that's why he was very shocked when Katniss' hand shot straight up

"Lovely to see you participating Katniss, now in a moment would you like to come up and sing it for the class." Katniss nodded, blushing slightly. Her aura had a green tinge to it.

The teacher handed out a plain piece of paper to everyone in the class, paper was one of the only things peeta saw as plain white

"now class, when Katniss here sings," the teacher said gesturing towards Katniss " I would like you to write down anything the music makes you picture, if she says the word valley and think of a beautiful green valley, then write that down." Peeta looked at his paper, well, this should be easy.

"Start." She said to Katniss, and Peeta felt a rush of anticipation, as if he were Katniss herself.

He opened her mouth , and began , and out of her small mouth and through her pink lips, came the most beautiful sound Peeta had ever heard in his small lifetime, her aura did that thing again, when it looked like she was on fire, deep reds, muted oranges and bright yellows engulfed her as she sang

The girl on fire was back.

Deep in the meadow,

Under the willow.

A bed of grass,

A soft green pillow,

Lay down your head.

And close your sleepy eyes,

And when they open, the sun will rise.

Here it's safe, here it's warm.

Here the daises guard you from every harm.

Here your dreams are sweet,

And tomorrow brings them true,

Here is the place, where I love you.

It's funny, when Katniss said "here is the place where I love you." Peeta felt like she was talking directly to him, he looked down, and noticed the paper for the first time since she started singing; he grabbed his pen and started writing feverishly,

_Katniss' song reminds me of, fire, yellow circles with blue outlines, yellow and green spirals, dark green ripples, the colour purple…_

Deep in the meadow, hidden far away,

A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray,

Forget your woes, and let your troubles lay,

And when again its morning, they'll wash away,

Here it's safe, here it's warm,

Here the daisies guard you from every harm,

Here you dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true,

Here is the place, where i love you.

_Katniss' song also reminds me of sweet mint, lightning, red velvet and pink spots_

Katniss' song had finished and she sat down and looked at him, before looking at his sheet and reading, her eyes scanning the page like those fancy photocopiers that were in the library, imported from the capitol. When she finished she looked at him one more time.

"You have synaesthesia." She said.

….

Peeta opened his mouth to reply, until he saw the horribly familiar black zigzags coming from the ceiling, and the horrible wailing screech of a siren that sounded of despair, that could only mean one thing

Mine accident.

"Dad." Said Katniss. Little did Peeta know, this would be the last time he heard her voice for a long time coming.


	4. Chapter 4

**note: This chapter if kind of depressing but i promise it will get better anyway, yay thank you! i was aiming for ten reviews but i got twelve! and i am happy :D i'm updating more than i thought i would but the updates might slow down, because i have this massive chemistry assessment to do along with other homework... so yeah thanks bellanator116 for being my tenth reviewer you're awesome! **

**we still need a few more reviews to buy those giraffes their very long scarves 0( '-' 0) (0 '-' 0) ( 0 '-') 0**

Chaos, that was the only word to describe what happened next, people ran, people screamed, people cried, a fog of dark colours set on the school. Katniss had disappeared into the fog. They had trained for this, once every six months, they had a drill. The children were meant to line up and file out in an orderly manner, so much for that.

Peeta, by some amazing miracle, made it out of the school and towards a roped off area in the mines, no one he knew worked there, but it was worth going to see who came out and to pay his respects to those who didn't. He spotted Katniss on the other side of the roped of part of the mine, clutching a little blond girl who looked like she was her sister, while her mother wrapped her arms around them. The first man came out of the mine, badly beaten up and limping, he heard a family sigh towards his right, before running towards the man and leaving.

The second man came out, his family rushed to greet him, the third came out, the forth, the fifth. The sixth person had lost his hand, and loosing blood quickly, but he was alive, and that was good enough. More people came out and the crowd slowly got thinner, Katniss was still in the exact same position she was in when he first saw her, and the sun had set a long time ago.

Sometime later, Katniss and her family and four other families were still there, and a man roped up the mine, slowly and sadly, he told the few people left, that there were no more.

Then came the crying.

Everyone cried hysterically, beating the ground with their fists, screaming in disbelief, even Peeta shed a few tears. Katniss was in a horrible state, she didn't cry the loudest, or fall on the floor but it was easy to see her grief. A black lining formed on her aura, every one else's aura turned very, very dark. A grey cloud hung on district twelve. Katniss hugged her family tightly, then hugged a random boy and cried into his chest. Peeta heard her say the word "Gale." He looked at Gale, he was tall strong, and already looked like a man, he had a handsome face and he could hunt, he lost his father too, so he knows how Katniss fells, Peeta could never compete with that. No, he shook away the thought; this is no time for jealousy.

Peeta decided to go to Katniss himself, tell her that he was sorry for her loss, he slowly walked towards her, she was sitting on the ground crying, her tears were bright blue.

"Katniss," he said, she looked up at him, with sad,glazed, puppy dog eyes. She jumped up and hugged him, Peeta stumbled back shocked, Katniss hadn't struck him as the hugging type, but he guessed she was felling emotional and wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He whispered to a devastated Katniss

"It's all their fault!" she cried

"Whose?" he asked quietly

"The capitols."

...

A lot of time passed since that day, Peetas twelfth birthday came and went, he matured, and didn't open up to many people anymore. He found a way to put his synaesthesia to use; he painted what his brain made him see, and hung his pictures up next to the numerous art awards he had won.

In the early days, Peeta had to stand by and watch as Katniss wasted her life away, she slowly got thinner, and she rarely went to the dinner hall. The black lining that formed around her aura on the day her father passed stayed there; she had built a shell around herself. One that would be very hard to crack. Peeta still loves her, but not like used to, he longs for the days of his obsessive love for Katniss, although this period of time only lasted around a day, Peeta considers it to be the best day of his life. He can't just talk to her anymore, so he sticks to admiring her from afar. When he sees her, that is. When the children got moved up to district twelve merchant quarter secondary school, she got pulled out, he has only seen her four times science.

Although it has been over a year, with fourteen days till Peetas thirteenth birthday, he still remembers one sentence that she said to him all those weeks ago.

"You have synaesthesia."

That once sentence had haunted his nightmares and plagued his dreams, how did she know? He likes to think it's her bright grey eyes; he likes to think that they can pierce right into his soul, but that's impossible. He learnt many things he used to believe in were impossible.

When Peeta was eleven, he believed in fairy tales, and magic, and potions, he also believed that every cloud had a silver lining. But of course, this too is just a myth, because, this cloud was not moving.

It is worth noting what happened with Peetas family life, as of course, his whole life didn't revolve around Katniss. As he stopped talking to his father about "feelings" and petty stuff like that, he and his father distanced from each other, their conversations were short and formal, his father was always polite, but he missed the days when he teased him. His brothers stopped teasing him and using his nickname "peety" they just walked around like they were living in a hotel, not speaking, only coming downstairs to eat or work. As for his mother, there was no big change there, but a few days after his twelfth birthday he found a book. It was his mother's old diary, he shouldn't have read it, but his curiosity got the better of him and he had seemed to have forgotten the saying "curiosity killed the cat" he found out that his mother hated him, and when he was born she refused to hold him or feed him, his dad had to feed him with watery, cold, powdered milk. He wasn't as disappointed as you would have expected. His mother hated him. What else is new?

The one thing he had learnt in this year and a bit is that he wasn't loved

He wasn't loved.

You see this is what Peeta craved the most, somebody to tell him that he's loved.


	5. Chapter 5

**note: thanks for your reviews. they really make my day! you may have guessed, but i'm doing all the events that happened pre-games with katniss and peeta in the books, but at different times in their lives, today is the turn of a certain incident that earned peeta his nickname "the boy with the bread" this is my longest chapter, but i'm not sure its my best, so please be nice :) i may have stolen a few ideas from max-ernest in the secret series but oh well XD random shout out to alas de fuego because you are just cool and Reaper98 because your review made me laugh :D**

**we have got the giraffes their very long scarves, but some elephants are in need of trunk mittens :)**

Peeta mellark is almost fourteen now, he deals with the trades regularly, but he never sees Katniss, only Gale, who either greets him with a scowl or a nod. His doesn't mind though, it's not like they should pretend that they were ever friends. Because one this is clear, "friends" is the last word someone would use to describe Peeta Mellark and Gale Hawthorne's relationship. So was "enemies".

On this day, he finishes the trades early, as not many people have anything to trade, its winter, and this year has been the harshest year for hunters and gatherers yet. People consider themselves lucky if they manage to find a dead starved squirrel. He knows this because Gale found one only two days before, people fought over it. This, of course doesn't help with his gnawing worry about Katniss.

Today, Peeta is due to see a doctor about his synaesthesia, he's had it since he was born and recently it seems to have got worse, the doctor is treating him for free, he says its because he was visited by an angel who told him to do more good deeds. Peeta frowned when he heard this, that man was meant to be helping him with his mental health too. Needless to say, he felt it was the wrong person. He didn't frown for long though, the same thing would happen as all of his doctor's visits. Peeta would talk; the doctor would sit there going "yeah…yes…mhmm…okay." Give him some pills and then leave.

It was six o clock when the doctor arrived, his father opened the door, he heard them greet each other then, some incoherent mumbling, which obviously meant that they were talking about him. Peeta just sat awkwardly at the kitchen table waiting for them to finish. After a while his father and the doctor came in, and Peeta was instantly struck with how young he looked, the man didn't look a day over thirty. He had clean, brown cropped hair, and his beard was clean shaven. There was a stark difference between this man and the white bearded, fluffy haired man he had expected.

The doctor sat down opposite him, and politely asked his father to leave. Peetas eyes widened, his father was always there next to him when he had a visit from a doctor, no matter how distant they had grown. His father was clearly shocked too; he gave Peeta a look before leaving him bouncing on his chair, agitated and nervous, listening to his father's very loud footsteps going up the stairs. He looked at the doctor, who, to Peetas surprise, didn't have a pen or paper out.

"Now, Peeta," He started "you clearly look nervous, relax a little, I won't bite."

"Aren't you going to write down what I say?" asked Peeta, letting his body sag, making it very clear that he was relaxing

"No, why would I do that?" The doctor said, leaving Peeta very confused. All the doctors that "treated" him wrote down what he said.

"Anyway, let's talk about your synaesthesia, that what were here for aren't we?" Peeta nodded

"Yes sir."

"Please, call me Jaden." The doctor smiled "now, can you describe your synaesthesia to me Peeta"

"Well…" Peeta said awkwardly "all numbers and letters have a certain colour and personality, six is pink, outgoing and is best friends with seven…. And well, when I hear music or someone talks, I see colours and shapes, people's names have tastes, like your name… it tastes of turkey. I can also hear smells; around a year ago I learnt that cigarette smoke sounds like someone playing the flute."

"Anything else?" asked the doctor, sorry, Jaden.

"Well, not many people believe me, but I can see auras, everyone in district twelve, has a grey aura, except one person, peoples auras change slightly with their mood, when people are angry or sad or annoyed, sometimes when they are lying their auras turn darker than normal, your aura is mostly grey but with bits of blue and yellow in it."

"I believe you." Peeta almost smiled, he was the only person (including doctors) he'd told that believed him.

What does my aura tell about me Peeta?" Jaden said, with a hint of a smile.

"It means that you're mischievous and you have a kind heart." The doctor smiled warmly.

"And you mentioned that very one has the same colour aura, except one person, can you tell me who that is?"

"I prefer not to say." Peeta replied, the last thing he wanted to do was mention Katniss. The doctor smiled, then fumbled around in his old, worn briefcase and pulled out some pictures. He picked one and put the rest back, the picture was of a flame.

"Peeta, how does this picture make you feel?" he asked. Peeta looked at it, and looked, and looked, he wasn't sure how he felt about it, so he told the doctor the truth.

"I don't know,"

"I know how it makes me feel", replied the doctor. "It makes me feel, curious, it makes me feel content, but at the same time it makes me feel wary."

"That doesn't make sense." Peeta frowned "how could it make you feel curious? Its fire, fire is fire. Fire is hot and it helps cook things. There's nothing else to it." He commented.

"Ah, Peeta, you're very logical aren't you? And from what I've seen, not very good at placing feelings."

"I used to be."

"But it's no use if you're not good now." The doctor retorted "so my advice is this, when you're in a situation, any at all, name your feelings, you can do it in your head or out loud, but you have to name them."

"What do you mean?"

"For example, say someone is shouting at you, how you feel about it? You may feel angry, frustrated, and sad. Say those feelings to yourself okay?"

"Okay."

"Now I must dash, sorry Peeta, I've got places to go, people to see." He said, packing up his things "I hope to see you again soon."

"Me too."

"Bye."

"Bye" said peeta watching him go, it was hard to believe that just that morning, Peeta thought he was mental. He decided to try out that thing that Jaden told him about.

He felt sad that Jaden was leaving.

He felt remorseful that he thought badly of Jaden at first.

He felt relieved that his father hadn't witnessed their talk.

….

That same day, Peeta decided to get ahead on his baking, he was putting bread in the oven, when he heard a thump coming from outside, he tip-toed towards the window, hoping that it wasn't a crazy axe murderer coming to get him. Squinting against the dirty window, he caught a purple glow. With a sharp intake of breath, he looked again and saw dark hair and pink lips.

Katniss.

Peetas heart leapt, he wasn't sure how he felt, so he tried out Jaden's technique.

He felt sad; Katniss looked like she was starving.

He felt slightly happy that Katniss was there.

He felt angry at himself for being happy.

He felt frustrated that no one had helped her.

He felt stupid, why isn't he helping her?

Peeta looked around, searching for inspiration. How would he get food to her? His eyes fell on the oven; the bread should be perfectly cooked by now. That was it! If the bread was burnt, he would get to go outside and feed it to the pigs, that was where Katniss was!

Peeta waited until the bread was slightly black, pretending to be kneading dough, when his mother stomped in. Peeta froze, and he knew that by the end of this day, one of them was going to have a bruise. And that person wasn't female.

"Peeta! You burnt the bread" you stupid good for nothing animal!"

Peeta said nothing; he just stared at her defiantly

"Only a starving seam brat would buy burnt bread! You might as well go feed it to the pigs!" she screamed, bringing down her rolling pin on to his cheek. Peeta felt no pain, he was used to it. He just stumbled outside into the pouring rain, trying to stop the bread getting wet. Katniss' eyes widened when she saw him, she had most likely noticed his bruise. He pretended to ignore her, and tore tiny burnt chunks from the bread, and threw them to the pigs, until he heard his mother stomping upstairs.

He looked left; he looked right, then walked cautiously out to a surprised Katniss and held the bread out,

"Here." He said.

"I don't need your charity." She scowled her aura dark. Peeta had half expected this, and already thought of what to say, something that would hit her right in her weak spot.

"Maybe you don't, but prim might." He said softly, letting the bread drop into her lap, and walking back to the bakery without a second glance.

Peeta felt many things about what he did, and even though it got him a bruise, he found that none of these emotions were negative.


	6. Chapter 6

**note: hi! this chapter takes the all important, amazing title as my longest chapter! you see, i spent all Sunday writing it and all of this morning editing it! i hope you like it, in this chapter you see just how horrible peetas relationship with his brothers has gone, especially wheat ( i know, original name right?!) anyway, in this chapter, comes the all important question that you've all been asking me (drum roll) how did katniss know about peetas synaesthesia? its not the amazing long story that you may have expected, but with it comes a random shocking plot twist :O anyway, ill just let you get on with reading the chapter. **

** you've got the elephants their trunk mittens, but there are some pandas in need of ear muffs :P**

Peeta woke up the next morning, with a strange sense of accomplishment, he started work on a positive note, and kneaded dough till his hands hurt. He had six hours of this until his shift was over, Peeta didn't care though, he loved baking.

It had been six hours, and Peeta was beginning to take the whole "I love baking" thing back, his hands ached, he had multiple burns on his arms and one on his leg, it looked like he tried to wrestle the oven, and lost, of course. He was glad his shift was over and went round the back for a rest, like a normal thirteen (almost fourteen) year old should be doing on a Sunday. Peeta sighed and waited for his eldest brother, Wheat to come downstairs it was his turn to do the baking shift, after a while he did come down, but he smelt like the town drunk, Haymitch.

"Take my shift." He ordered, slightly slurring his words.

"No." Peeta replied, taking another shift was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Take my shift." He repeated

"No."

"What did you just say?" Wheat snarled

"I said no." Peeta barely managed to get the last word out when he felt a fist coming in contact with his stomach; he fell on the floor, gasping for breath.

"Listen Peety." Spat Wheat, unlike the other times Rye and Wheat had called him Peety, this felt bad, menacing.

"I have things to do, I'm seeing friends tonight. Obviously you don't know about that because you don't have any."

Peeta stayed silent

"What's going on?" called a voice from upstairs, unmistakably Rye, which both Peeta and Wheat ignored.

"Take my shift, Peeta. It's obvious you have nothing else to do, because no one likes you. All you ever do is think about that stupid seam girl, she doesn't even like you. I bet she's out there, sucking faces with Gale Hawthorne as we speak."

Peeta still said nothing. But it hurt, because it was probably true.

"No one likes you, I don't, dad doesn't, mum doesn't, and Rye doesn't." At this point Rye decided it was time to come downstairs.

"I like Peety." He said, ruffling Peetas hair "who doesn't like Peety?"

"Everyone." Wheat snapped

Rye stayed silent.

"Everyone wanted a girl, but we got you. Don't try to deny it Rye, you wanted a little sister too, mum should have got an abortion, everyone would be so much happier."

"Wheat I was like three years old." Rye sighed; Peeta wasn't sure how it got from Wheat telling him to take his shift to this.

"But you still wanted a girl."

Rye looked worried and frowned.

The sad this is that once, when Peeta was around twelve, Wheat had told him to never forget what someone says when they are drunk, because that's when the truth came out.

Peetas whole body began to heat up, it started deep inside his stomach, a spark, small and bright, then it got bigger, and bigger engulfing his chest in flames then rose up and up, making him red in the face, and forcing salty tears out of his eyes. must,not,cry.

"Aww look Rye, little Peetys gonna cry!" teased Wheat, making Peeta madder and madder, he was pretty sure that if he could see his own aura, it would be very, very dark. He grunted, it was like a battle cry to Peeta, he jumped on Wheat screaming, crying and throwing punches, kicks and slaps, biting when he got the chance. The frustrating thing was, Wheat was just standing there laughing throughout the whole thing.

"Stop being so mean to Peeta." Said Rye, calmly

Peeta was just about to start speaking, to agree with Rye, when Wheat punched him. Right on his bruise, knocking him to the floor.

He got to his feet and fled.

….

Peeta didn't know where he was going, he felt like a wounded wild animal, he just realised, that right then his "flight or fight" instinct had kicked in, and he chose flight, like the coward he was. His cheek hurt savagely, and his feet were getting tired, every muscle in his body screamed at him to rest, but he couldn't stop now. He needed to go somewhere where there were no people, not here though, he stood out like a stick in the mud, blonde and blue in a sea of brown and grey.

Eventually, after what seemed like hours of walking, he stumbled upon a beautiful, lush green, meadow, frost coating the blades of grass in a cage of ice. Normal kids would have worried that their family will worry about them. Peeta knew his family didn't care. Tears formed in his eyes and a lump formed in his throat. He decided to let them out. Keeping them in wasn't good and besides, no one could see him here.

He screwed his eyes shut and cried silently, tears ran down his freezing face, he began to feel sorry for himself, wheat was right, everyone in his family wanted a girl, they couldn't even deny it, but they got him. A synaesthesic freak. No wonder they all hated his guts. Peeta wished he had a normal family, he wished he was from the seam, sure they were poor, and sure, some merchants hated them, but the seam were the happiest people. The most loving people. They cherished what little they had and loved so fiercely. They were strong and brave. If one of them saw him now, crying and snivelling like a fool in the meadow, they would think "oh no, look at this poor townie, had a little tiff with his brother, poor guy, that's much worse than not having enough to eat every day."

Peeta was so busy, swimming in his depression, feeling sorry for himself, that he didn't notice the small figure, glowing purple that came and sat next to him.

"Hi Peeta." She said.

He looked at her; his eyes were red and teary. It took him a second, but when he realised who it was he quickly and savagely wiped his tears away. It was the last person he wanted to cry in front of.

"Katniss."

"That's my name." she said "Thanks for the bread…it was… really…tasty." She finished a triumphant smile on her face. Peeta had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. She's said that before, but when?

"You've said that before." He almost whispered

"Yeah, the day my dad died…"

"I'm sorry." Peeta said, ashamed for bringing that up.

"It's okay, it's been years."

"Why are you even here?" asked Peeta

"You looked like you needed some company."

"Maybe Gale needs some company." He retorted, the comment seemed to make Katniss mad. Very mad. Her aura glowed red and she glared at him with unforgiving grey eyes.

"Look Peeta, I'm trying to be nice, which isn't something I do often." She seethed, but at the same time being strangely calm

"So why don't you shut up, and play along, okay?"

"I'm sorry," said Peeta, eventually.

"You should be." She said, there was an awkward silence, Katniss felt the need to fill it, though she isn't normally the one to fill silences.

"It's okay really, I just lose my temper easily, you look upset, and so you probably have a short temper too, what happened anyway?"

"I had a fight with Wheat."

"Oh." She said, Peeta realised that she was trying hard to make it look like she cared; she obviously thought it was a silly thing to cry about, she probably expected a sad and heart wrenching tale from him, Just then, Peeta thought of a question he always wanted to ask her, and this would be the perfect time to bring it up.

"How did you know I had synaesthesia?"

"What?"

"Ages ago, you sang in music assembly, the teacher said that we had to write down what it made us think of, and you read mine, and said "you have synaesthesia.""

"I remember that, your one said that it reminded you of pink spots and lighting, my uncle has it. He says that when I sing it reminds him of pink spots and lightning."

"Oh." Peeta said, this wasn't the amazing, long, beautiful confession that he had expected, but it was good enough, at least the question wouldn't be bothering him anymore.

Katniss, sat there silently, her hand was on her chin, a serious, philosophical expression etched on her face that looked like she was pondering the meaning of life.

"He's staying at my house, would you like to meet him?" she finally asked, this took him by surprise; the Katniss Everdeen was inviting him to her house.

Katniss Everdeen wanted him, Peeta Mellark, townie and son of the baker at her house. He did a little dance inside his head; he couldn't believe that this was happening. He felt like exploding! Okay, Peeta, breathe, one, two. One two. One, Two.

"Sure." He said indifferently.

…..

When they reached Katniss' house. Prim opened the door, she looked shocked when she saw him and after "recovering" shouted out,

"Mum! Guess what! Katniss brought a boy home!" This caused both Katniss and Peeta to blush, it was true, but implied something else.

"Don't be silly Prim," Mrs Everdeen sighed, then called to Katniss "Katniss invite your friend in." Katniss and Peeta stepped in. Katniss' house was not nearly as big or pretty as his, but it had a homey feel to it. It felt lived in and it was clean, Peeta liked it better than his house. You could tell, at first glance, that the people who lived in the house were a very close family. They walked into the living room, it was small and cramped, and filled with random nick-knacks and family pictures, some old, some new, there was a dusty spider's web in the corner, but it was better than his living room. Katniss gestured towards an old man sitting at the table.

"That's my uncle." She said. Her uncle grunted in reply and opened his eyes, they were grey and the same shade as Katniss' eyes, but not nearly as pretty, he had brown hair and a grimy beard, his skin was oily and dirty. All in all he looked like and average seam man. His eyes studied Peeta, making him slightly self-conscious; eventually he opened his mouth to speak.

"Oh no, not another one." He said, with fake exasperation, Peeta decided he liked Katniss' uncle.

"Another what?" Peeta asked.

"Another one with a purple aura, just Katniss is enough."


	7. Chapter 7

**note: I AM SO SORRY :'( i haven't updated, and i feel terrible, i promise that this story will be updated at least once a week, AT THE VERY LEAST. just to say every sleep related thing that happens at the end of this chapter is real, so is synaestehsia, when you wake up and can move your body its called sleep paralysis, i researched it for mu science homework :P but anyway, when you have a feeling of viewing the world outside your body is called an out of body experience, research them if you like, they are really interesting i promise. anyway i have a random question, **

**should i include the hunger games in this, or make it an AU were there is no hunger games**

**note inside a note: katniss is a bit ooc, so it fits with my story, if you want her to be like the original katniss, moody and quiet and distrusting, then just say so :P**

Peetas heart felt like it was about to burst. He almost screamed. Did he hear it right? Did Katniss' uncle really say he had a purple aura? Not once had peeta mellark seen his aura. Not once had peeta mellark imagined it would be purple.

"w-what do- you m-mean purple?" he stuttered

Katniss' uncle sighed.

"Don't tell me you don't know, Katniss here told me you had synaesthesia."

"I do."

"Yes, so do I." he said, "I can see auras, so can you. Can't you?"

"Yes."

"And I'm guessing, like me, you have never seen your aura. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"So who are you to deny that yours is purple?"

Peeta didn't know how to answer that, he couldn't tell him why he thought that it couldn't be purple. Heck, he didn't even know himself. Over the years, Peeta had developed a theory that the person you loved had a purple aura, and he wasn't about to fall in love with himself. Katniss uncle had reopened the mystery of the purple aura, as Peeta liked to call it, but now with an unexpected twist.

Katniss' uncle was staring at him with a slightly amused expression, one of his dark, hairy eyebrows was raised and he smirked slightly, he reminded Peeta of his brother rye, who had a messed up sense of humour, he was clearly enjoying his discomfort.

"What colour is my aura?" he suddenly said. This made Peeta look at him, really look at him, he was suddenly aware that they weren't so different, he was once young, and just like him he had synaesthesia, behind those deep wrinkles was a story, a story that Peeta was suddenly interested in.

Katniss' uncle raised his hand, gesturing for him to answer his question. Peeta smiled when he saw a wedding ring on his grimy left hand, it wasn't anything fancy, not even the merchants could afford a real wedding ring, one made out of a precious metal like the ones in the capitol, it was just a plain band of tough leather, it looked slightly worn, but Katniss, uncle didn't look like someone who cared for material things. The only thing that mattered was that he was married, this synaesthesic man was married. That thought gave him hope.

Peeta was suddenly aware of eyes staring at him, he blushed, he was supposed to be answering a question. He looked down, embarrassed.

"It's grey, blue, yellow, and slightly brown. Kind of white" He replied

"Ahhh, kind hearted, mischievous a bit moody and wise, sounds like me." He said, giving a faint smile

"What does it mean, to have a purple aura?" Peeta asked, he planned to be asking a lot of questions, this man could be his ticket to understanding his synaesthesia.

"I don't know, but judging by Katniss here, it's probably an annoying little kid who asks a lot of questions." He replied, smirking.

Peeta seemed to have just noticed that Katniss was in the room, she was staring at them both like they were mad men, which, peeta thought, in a sense they were.

"Are me and Katniss the only people who have synaesthesia?" he asked

"I don't know everybody in panem, boy, but you two are the only people I've met that have purple auras, and in my long life time, I've met most of district twelve." Katniss uncle replied

"Now, I believe I'm stealing you away from Katniss, why don't you two run along and play kiss chase, or whatever you kids are into these days."

They both blushed. Katniss groaned audibly, her uncle smirked as they left the room.

"It's funny, how none of you denied that you were going to play kiss chase." Her uncle added

"Were not!" They said together.

"Right…"

Peeta heard Katniss say a bad word under her breath, a very bad word, one that should not be repeated under any circumstances, as this is a good, clean, family friendly story.

Peeta smirked.

…

Katniss and Peeta somehow ended up back in the meadow. Where they sat down, sometime when they were in Katniss' house it had started to snow. The snow covered the meadow in a cold, fluffy blanket. More snow, danced around frantically in the sky before settling down on the grass.

"What's this whole thing about auras?" Katniss asked and Peeta found himself explaining for the second time in two days as Katniss listened with a bewildered expression.

"So you think you know what people are like just because of the colour of their auras?"

"Kind of…?" Peeta didn't like where this was going

"So you know what I'm like just because of my aura?"

"Kind of…?" he repeated, Katniss face took on a hurt expression and she stalked off

_Way to go peeta, you moron._

Peeta looked, up he planned to apologise to her when a snowball hit him square on the face, he spat out snowflakes. Katniss was standing about thirty paces away from him, grinning manically. Peeta smiled, and scooped up some snow.

"Oh, it's on!" he shouted, and pelted her with snow, a snowball landed on her head, decorating her hair with glistening ice, he thought she looked beautiful.

Katniss had better aim than Peeta, but Peeta made up for it with his relentless firing of snow balls, and after what seemed like a short while to Peeta, the stars came out and he threw himself to the ground, Katniss followed shortly after, and lay next to him. The cold, uncomfortable ice suddenly felt very warm and inviting to Peeta, the soft snow lulled him into a daze; he closed his eyes, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Katniss followed shortly after.

…..

When Peeta woke, he couldn't move his limbs, in fact the only part of his body he could move was his eyes. He was annoyingly aware of the icy cold, wet sleet under him. Dark menacing shaped flitted before his eyes, something dark bent over him, it felt like something was caressing his face with their horribly silky hair. He wanted to run. But his limbs wouldn't obey. He felt like they belonged to someone else.

A horrible wrenching feeling seemed to tear Peeta away from his body. Suddenly, he was up and moving. He turned around to look at a blond haired boy and a dark haired girl sleeping next to each other, but the boy's eyes were wide open, Peeta thought it was creepy, the boy looked like he was dead.

With closer inspection, to Peetas horrible realisation, he realised that the blonde boy was him. He started to panic. If his body was there, next to Katniss, then why is he all the way over here?

Peeta wandered away, and soon reached the edge of the meadow, a seam man walked right past him, he didn't seem to have acknowledged Peetas existence. He reminded himself that it was because Peeta Mellark's body was in the meadow, he wondered if that was because he was a ghost. Was he dead? Weren't you supposed to go up some bright tunnel to heaven or fall into a fiery pit to hell if you were dead?

Another horrible wrenching feeling, he was back in the meadow.

Katniss was shaking him, she looked panicked, and a tear was rolling down her cheek. Peeta wearily wiped it away. Katniss gasped

"I thought you were dead!" she shouted, before covering her mouth with her hands and continuing to cry hysterically, Peeta remembered what he looked like, he did look dead, but wasn't his heart still beating? Peeta hoped it was.

"I wouldn't have died." Peeta said

"How could you stop yourself from dying?" Katniss cried

"Because I would much rather be here with you."


	8. Chapter 8

**note: hello you amazing muffins! i have a confession :( i may or may not have (i did) steal a few riddles for this chapter from "i am a cloud i can blow anywhere" its about a little African girl called mulumbe whose life is turned upside down when her village is raided by night muraders read it its a good book!**

**anyway, this is a bit random, but i have gotten my idea for my next hunger games story, its inspired by a book called the shadow garden and it will be set in 19th century England and will be a horror/ mystery story, i wont give anymore away its a surprise :P**

**it occurred to me that i never put a disclaimer. so here it is **

**Disclaimer: i do not own the hunger games, or the characters, but i do own a quite beautiful stuffed bear called doopy :P**

**on a more amazing note, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW! and it would be very much appreciated, if as and extra-special birthday present you could review? please?**

Katniss smiled.

Not just her strange, tight lipped half smile that she does, or her amused, superior smirk, a real one that lights up her whole face.

If you didn't know Katniss Everdeen, this would not be such an amazing thing. So she smiled, so what? You probably do that ten times a day.

But Peeta Mellark knew Katniss Everdeen, and he knew that you had to be a very special person to get Katniss Everdeen to smile. To really smile.

Peeta couldn't be prouder of himself.

Katniss helped Peeta of the ground, after quite an emotional i-thought-you-were-dead incident, his back was soaked through and he was chilled to the bone, his skin was red and blotched, Goosebumps decorated him with small polka dots. Katniss though, was lightly better prepared, which, when you think about it didn't really make sense, as Peeta was the one who could afford all the waterproof warm stuff, Katniss didn't need to buy anything though, her tough leather trousers, hunting jacket and boots protected her body from the neck down from the merciless cold of the ice.

Above them (and a little to the left) the trees were coated in a thick layer of sparking snow, two of the trees branches were in such a place that they formed a love heart, peeta thought about showing it to Katniss, but he thought better of it, that was exactly the kind of suggestive talk that Katniss wouldn't like so he tore his eyes away from it and looked at Katniss, wondering how they would spend this day.

"What do we do now?" asked Peeta, thinking out loud

"Well, I'm supposed to hunt now, but I don't think there will be any prey, or plants around in this weather." She replied, which made Peeta feel sorry for her

"Don't worry about food, my family owns the bakery." He said, hoping it would stop him feeling guilty. He remembered a second too late that he was here because he had run away from home.

Too late now.

"That's not necessary, I've said this before, but I don't need your pity." Said Katniss

Peeta pretended that he hadn't heard her. Instead he completely ignored the whole topic and went back to the previous one which was about what they were going to do.

"I think we should just talk, get to know each other, its weird, were talking like we are the best of friends but I don't even know what your favourite colour is."

"It's green, like the forest." Said Katniss

"Mines orange."

"Orange, don't you think that's a bit too… bright." Katniss said, looking at him quizzically

"I mean more muted, like the sunset."

"Oh," that was all Katniss could say

"What do you like better, sun rises or sunsets?" Peeta asked

"Sun rises."

"Why?"

"Because they symbolise the begging of something new, a fresh start you know? Like the begging of a new day."

If she were talking to anyone but peeta mellark, they would have thought she was being sappy, but she was talking to peeta mellark, king of sappiness, he didn't thing there was anything wrong with what she said.

"I like sunsets," peeta stated "they remind me of a sort of, I don't know, like an introduction to night time, when all the stars come out, besides, they are really pretty, I keep trying to paint them, but the shades change too quickly, I could be painting a beautiful red sunset, and then when I look up, its dark out and I never get to finish them." Peeta was about to go on when It occurred to him that he was rambling so he stopped.

"Oh," Katniss said, peeta noticed that she said "oh" a lot

"Do you want to play riddles?" Katniss asked randomly,

"Me and my dad always used to play riddles." She added

There she goes again, making peeta feel guilty when he didn't even suggest the game.

"okay," he said, "I've got one, my grandma told it to me, it took me ages to figure out,"

"When father comes home, he brings us all new clothes, who is father?" he says, with a deep, dramatic expression etched on his face.

"Spring time, father is spring time, when spring comes, all the trees get their leaves again, like clothes." Katniss said, she didn't even hesitate, it took Peeta four whole days to figure it out, and Katniss looked like she didn't even need to think.

"Okay how about this one, you might not get it, only hunters will really understand it."

Peeta snorted,

"Is that a challenge I smell?" he said

"I don't know is it?" Katniss replied, smirking

"Okay here it is," she continued "I am silent but I bring the storm."

"Clouds, easy, did you really think I'd get suck on that." He said, his voice filled with pride and superiority

"wrong." She said, smirking again

All of Peetas pride seemed to have flown out the window.

"What do you mean wrong?"

"Yes clouds bring storm," she said "but, they also bring thunder, which means they aren't silent."

Peeta thought long and hard, he looked around the forest for inspiration, he couldn't shake the feeling that the answer was staring him in the face. Peeta didn't want to admit that he didn't know, he was far too proud, Katniss was looking at him with an infuriatingly amused expression, which told him that she knew, that he didn't know.

Little did he know, the answer was creeping closer.

….

Peeta didn't know the answer to the riddle; he was truly stumped on this one.

"Trees!" he guessed

"Trees? What have trees got to do with anything? What could a tree do that would metaphorically "bring the storm"?"

"I don't know," peeta smiled "I seem to have resorted to guessing random things around me."

Katniss smirked.

"Snow?"

"Nope"

"Rocks?"

"No."

"The sun."

"No."

"Bread?"

"Bread, really Peeta?"

Peeta shrugged.

Peeta absent mindedly looked left, through the trees, for a heartbeat he caught one nightmarish glimpse of cold, menacing yellow eyes.

He was too frightened to gasp.

The creature had dark fur, although he couldn't see it, he could almost sense it lifting its muzzle to taste their scents, he almost sensed the razor sharp claws clinking on the rocks, it stalked them, circling them through the now menacing trees, its pads made no sound as it crawled around them.

Peetas synaesthesia went wild. Colours got brighter, sounds pounded in his ears, colours and shapes danced in front of his eyes, he almost fainted.

Katniss had saw it too, her bow was fifty paces away from her, may as well have been five hundred, she stared at him, and for the first time he saw real fear in her eyes, he was sure that he was mirroring her expression.

Peeta was in awe of how it managed to get to them, through the forest completely silently. His mind made up a hundred different ways it could rip them to pieces with its powerful jaws, lapping up their metallic blood with its long, rough tongue.

_I am silent, but I bring the storm._


	9. Chapter 9

**note: hi, i have got a new time table for updates, although i probably wont stick to it, i will update on Saturday and Wednesday, with maybe an very occasional extra update on another day**

**in this chapter i kind of did a bit of the wild dogs pov, its strange i know, and also i took a few words from wolf's lingo from chronicles of ancient darkness, its my joint favorite book with the hunger games. just to let you know, not breath means dead and long claw that flies far means bow and arrow**

**i probably don't sound like myself in this AN, so the truth is, i didn't like of writing this, sure i always love writng new chapters, but i hate it that peeta gets hurt and it left me feeling more than a little bit depressed, this is probably not my best chapter, but that was probably because i was sulking over the fact that peeta has to get hurt for the rest of the plot to make sense, and also to make way for some peeta/katniss moments**

Peeta repeats it in his head over and over again, I am silent but I bring the storm, I am silent but I bring the storm, he keeps going while the wild dog keeps coming closer, it wild yellow eyes seemed to bore into Peetas, the creature bared its brilliant white fangs, each one had a horribly pointy end, its fur was a glossy black, and he noticed patches of red on it, at first he thought it was a weird effect of his synaesthesia, until he heard Katniss say the word "blood"

At first this reassured Peeta, if it had blood on its fur, it must have had a kill, it must have eaten, maybe then it wouldn't be so hungry and it would spare their poor lives, but then he noticed that the amount of blood was growing, and growing, until a steady stream of it flowed down the creatures side.

It was injured.

Maybe you don't know the importance of the fact that the wild dog was injured, but it proved to be very important indeed. Katniss knew why it was important, but that was expected, she was a hunter. Peeta knew why it was important, that was because he had once gone to the school library and learnt everything that his brain could possibly take in about hunting in hopes of impressing Katniss. You, though, probably don't know why it's important, so let me explain.

A round an hour back, this dog had been roaming the forest, doing what wild dogs do, trying to find the tiniest scrap of meat in the harsh winter morning when he caught a scent of something, a scent of something delicious, fresh, juicy, meaty squirrel

Lunch.

So this wild dog, like a wild dog would do, followed the scent until he came into a little clearing, he eyed the squirrel, something was wrong with it, it smelt not-breath, but he was far too hungry to care, it's not like he wouldn't eat a bit of carrion once in a while, and so he happily crunched up the squirrel in his mouth, not leaving a scrap, drinking up its blood.

The wild dog smelt something else, something that shouldn't be here.

Human.

This wild dog had seen humans in his forest before, it wasn't such a big deal, but this human smelt wrong, it smelt bad. The wild dog raised his hackles and bore his teeth, hoping to scare the bad human away, he crept closer.

A horrible pain in his rib made him whine. Blood poured out, as it drained, so did his strength, he tried licking it better, but it was no use, it only worked for small cuts he got in his pads when loping over some particularly sharp rocks. No, licking it wasn't going to help.

The dog knew the bad human had disappeared, but he lifted his muzzle and sniffed anyway, the pain in his rib when he raised himself up was almost too much for him to handle, but he caught the scent.

Human.

Gathering up all his strength, the wild dog followed the scent of the human, with every step his paws ached and the pain in his rib screamed, but he kept going, eventually, he reached another snowy clearing, and with his yellow eyes, he saw not one human but two. Two evil horrible humans, one with a pale pelt, and one with a darker one, two humans who had cut him and not even finished the kill, two humans who had left him to bleed to death, they had not cut him for food, they had simply cut him for the fun of it.

For one second, the dog doubted that it was them who cut him, they didn't smell like bad humans, in fact, they smelt like perfectly good humans to him, but then he caught sight of the long claw that flies far next to the female human.

That was all the proof he needed.

He would rip them to pieces, make them pay for what they had done, he would lap up their blood and crunch their bones, he would make sure they never hurt another poor animal again, he would force them to the floor, he would rip their muscles and snap their bones like twigs.

He would make sure they never got up.

…..

Peeta watched in horror as the wild do came closer, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katniss shake, and shuffle a little bit more towards her bow. Like that would be any use.

This dog was injured, it was mad with pain, after it killed them; it would probably die too with blood loss. Peeta decided to try and accept the fact that he would die, he would distract the dog and Katniss would run away, safe to her family, forget about him and marry Gale Hawthorne, she might even have children. At least he would die a hero; she would tell her kids about the poor, mad, synaesthesic baker boy who saved her life once.

Shame. Just as he was getting somewhere with her.

The wild dog was around twenty paces away from them now, and Katniss had inched a few paces more towards her bow, he was in the same position as before, clutching a bramble. He found the pain helped him stay focused. The wild dog growled at him, he saw a strange black and red spiky shape coming out of its mouth and recoiled a bit, until he realised it was probably just his synaesthesia. He looked right into the dog's eye.

He growled at it.

It pounced.

What happened after was a blur, Peeta had a gash on his arm, and he had no idea where it was from, he was on the floor, the dog was gnawing away at his limbs, he felt no pain, out the corner of his eyes, he saw Katniss make a mad dash for her bow, she reached it, and picked it up, the dog looked in her direction but didn't go to her, it was preoccupied with tearing him apart. He told himself that it was a good thing, he had saved Katniss, distracted the dog so she could run, the only problem was, she wasn't running.

The dog bit his arm, it made a horrible crunching sound, pain shot up it and it went limp, Peeta let out a wrenching moan, his body felt like a sack of bloody meat, the dog scratched him on the leg with its sharp claws, Peeta screamed.

He guessed that the end was near, it had to be, he felt the world fading away, isn't that what happens when you die? Maybe he was already dead, and this was him reliving his death, he could have stayed silent, but instead, he gathered his strength and let out one rattling, haunting warning.

"Run…"

He felt the dog go limp, and opened his eyes, for what he guessed would be the last time, and found satisfaction in the fact that an arrow was sticking out of its body, Katniss would survive.

Peeta tried to be optimistic, but his eyes were drooping, he fought to keep them open, but after a while it was too much, he didn't have any fight left in him, so he let them droop.

The world went black.


	10. Chapter 10

**note: hi! i'm really happy, because i got the most reviews i have ever got for a chapter in the last chapter! which is seven, could we do one better and make it to fifty ****reviews?**

**50th reviewer gets a mention in the next chapter (sorry, i know its not much)**

**i haven't got much to drone on about so just enjoy the chapter (hopefully)**

Peeta opened his eyes, they felt heavy and it was an effort to even open them up a little bit because they were glued together with blood from his forehead. (but you see, Peeta doesn't know that yet) When he did open his eyes, he didn't see much for about five seconds, instead he saw a glowing bright light, almost like a tunnel, a shocking brilliant white filled his eyes, slowly but surely an outline began to form in the middle of the tunnel. First, it was blurred around the edges, but then the lines began to get sharper, he began to make out a face, with soft, caring features. It all began to piece together, a white dress, blonde hairs, not a different colour to his own, pale blue eyes and a cute button nose, you would think that this brought Peeta clarity, but it only confused him more.

He was trying to speak, but his voice came out croaky and hoarse, like haymitch Abernthany when he had a cold.

"ar-"he let out a chesty cough "are you an angel?" he said, shocked by how weak his voice sounded.

The girl didn't move

"Am I dead?" he asked

Suddenly, everything seemed to rush into action, the angel rushed forward and grabbed his face, causing him to wince, the whiteness around her turned to a grey blue, and slowly, his surroundings began to rise into view.

"I'm not an angel you silly goose, I'm Prim. It's good to see your eyes you don't know how long you've been out, Katniss has been so worried!" the girl said

The girl, who he know knew was Prim, Katniss' hyper little sister, continued babbling, so Peeta decided to tune out, he already had a headache, and it felt like someone was continuously hammering at him with a hatchet, and he didn't need it to get worse.

Instead, he decided to look around, Prim was there, so he could only assume that he was in Katniss house, or that manky old doctor's office in town, he could only hope it would be the former, as his vision began to clear, he looked around, Prim's aura was so bright it covered up most of what was around her, he considered telling her to move, but thought better of it, he thought it would be rude, considering she had come to see him, and Peeta would be far too weak to speak unless completely necessary, so he looked around to the left, where Prims grey blue aura didn't cover up everything in sight. He saw a family photo, smiles all round, he recognised it as Katniss' family, but with a man he had never seen before, he could only assume that was her late father. Peeta had an overwhelming urge to get up and wipe away the layer of dust that had settled on top of the photo.

Next to the photo, there was a clock, Peeta could tell it was broken, the little red hand wasn't moving at all, and like the family photo, there was a layer of dust on it, like it hadn't been touched for a lifetime. In the far left hand corner of the room, he could barely make out the silvery thread, knotted into patterns, there were a few black dots on it, and Peeta recognised it as the spiders web he had seen the first (and last) time he had been in Katniss' house.

Peeta had a sudden realisation,

He was in Katniss' living room.

Peeta looked around, why was he in Katniss' house? And why did his whole body hurt?

Prim was still babbling on, he had nothing better to do than listen to her, thinking with himself would surely drive him to insanity.

"Oh, you should have seen Katniss! All I can say is that's the first time I'd seen her cry in a long time, all blaming herself and stuff, when you and I both know it isn't, it's the fault of that horrible man who injured the wild dog?"

The wild dog? What do wild dogs have to do with anything? What was Katniss blaming herself for? The last thing he remembered was falling asleep next to her in the snow, and now Primrose had been talking to him like something else to do with wild dogs or something had happened, when Peeta knew nothing had happened, until now he had assumed that he had just sleepwalked and tumbled off a cliff or something, but what do wild dogs have to do with sleepwalking and cliffs?

Peeta tried to lift himself up, where was every one? Why was he sitting in Katniss' living room with Primrose, most importantly, why was he tucked up in a bed, shirtless, with only a flimsy white sheet to protect his modesty?

Peeta winced when he heard a horrible ringing, the sound intensified his headache by a thousand times, he saw ripples, and shut his eyes to get rid of them, but when he closed his eyes, he only saw them brighter, glowing bright in the darkness.

"Oh, that's just the doorbell," said Prim "try not to sit up; you might reopen that head wound."

Head wound?

Prim skipped towards the door, he listened carefully for snippets of the conversation going on at the door

"Katniss!" said the very cheery voice of Primrose "why didn't you use your key?"

He heard incoherent mumbling

"How could you lose your key in the woods? It was in your pocket!"

More mumbling, and an exasperated sigh from Prim, he could almost hear her rolling her eyes.

"Oh Katniss, he woke up! He seems very confused though…" said Prim, trailing of at the end.

He heard quick light footsteps getting louder as they approached the living room

"Don't get too excited, he's too weak to talk, he barley said two words to me when he woke up!" a voice shouted from far away.

The door burst open, Katniss stood before him, hair wild, beautiful as ever with a glowing aura and bright eyes, as she strode towards him, she brought with her the smell of pine from the forest.

She rushed towards him and hugged him, he coughed, and immediately she burst into tears.

Katniss never bursts into tears.

Never, not ever, ever, ever, ever.

I cannot stress the never more.

"Oh Peeta!" she chocked out through her tears Peeta it's all my fault! I should have been quicker, I should have helped you, but I was so scared, I'm such a coward!"

Peeta almost laughed, but that would be inappropriate at such an emotionally charged moment.

Katniss Everdeen was apologising to him, he decided to make the most of it, to savour every second, because this, I can assure you, only happens once in a blue moon.

"Saved me from what? Sleepwalking?" Peeta let out a raspy laugh, which ended in a cough.

So this is what it feels like to be Haymitch.

"You know what Peeta! Please tell me you know!" she cried

"I really don't." he whispered "I think I probably sleepwalked and fell of cliff or something."

Katniss stared at him, wide eyed; her aura was ringed with black.

Peeta guessed that was the wrong answer.

Katniss hugged him tightly, whispering I'm so sorry, over and over again.

Peeta coughed.


	11. Chapter 11

**note: hay! i'm happy because Peeta finally gets his wish in this chapter, horray! again there are some English things in this chapter just to clarify a plaster is a band- aid ( i think that's what its called in america) and half term is this weird one week break in the middle of a term (or semester?) i'm not sure if they have that in america**

**50TH REVIEWER IS... DELUSIONALLITTLEGIRL! PEOPLE, GO TO HER/HIS PROFILE, PM HER/ HIM SHE/HE IS AWSOME**

**random shout out to reaper98 because you are cool!**

**ATTENTION****! ATTENTION!**

**there's**** another chance for a shout out if we get 60 reviews this time, again 60th reviewer gets a shout out, i know this is ambitious, but if we get seventy i will give a shout out to the 70th reviewer AND personally thank them in a pm AND i will review their story if they have one AND i might use their name for and OC if they want me too**

**come on people, you know its a good deal!**

**stay awesome :P**

Peeta was beyond confused.

Katniss just cried and he awkwardly stroked her back, he had no idea what to do to make her feel better. Tell her that he remembers? No that would be lying, and lying is much, much worse.

Katniss eventually got up, and fiercely wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Your fine, well both be fine." She said, more to herself than to Peeta, she repeated it like a mantra as Peeta watched her walk out of the room. Out the window, he saw her running to the forest; her braid was flailing about wildly being her as she sprinted to the trees. She looked like she could no longer bear one second of being anywhere that was not the forest.

Peeta wondered what day it was, they were currently on their half- term holiday (that was when Peeta had the accident) and Prim had told him that he had been knocked out for a long time, how long was it before he had to go back to school, would he even be allowed back in school? How bad were his injuries? Judging by the reactions of those around him, Peeta guessed that they were pretty bad. That's the reason why Peeta had refused to look at them, he shut his eyes very tightly whenever Mrs Everdeen had to change his bandages and plasters and what not.

Katniss had left two hours, four minutes and twenty seven seconds before. Peeta found he was very bored, about one foot away from him, there was a bookcase; all the books on it looked dusty, worn and old. He thought about getting up and picking out a book, but he was far too weak to stand. Instead, he took a rather large umbrella in one bruised hand. His jelly like arms almost couldn't take the unbearable weight of the umbrella. The hooked end of the umbrella picked up the ribbon book mark of a random book. The blue ribbon had been conveniently tied in a knot. The book didn't look as dusty as the others, so Peeta guessed it been taken out fairly recently. His eyes squinted to make out that faded multi-coloured (thanks to his synaesthesia) print engraved on the leather cover.

"Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare"

Peeta thought the tile and the book looked pretty boring, but he decided to read it anyway, he would readily watch paint dry if it meant getting him out of the boredom he was in. He gently opened the leather cover, he tried to do it so it wasn't too hard on his poor fingers, but they still hurt when he opened it anyway. He winced, but honestly, he didn't care. If his shoulders weren't so bloody and bandaged he might have even shrugged.

There was a note on the first page of the book, it said " Katniss- remember that you are on page 168" Peeta traced the letters, drinking in every colour with his eyes, when he ran his fingers along the sentence, the charcoal smudged , causing the colours to merge together like a rainbow, he couldn't make out what it said anymore. So Peeta decided he would tell her that she was on page 168 if she ever noticed. He smiled at that fact that Katniss had been reading it; she hadn't struck him as the reading type.

He turned the page, where there was a short colourful passage entitled "prologue" his eyes scanned the sentences.

Two households both alike in dignity.

In fair Verona where we lay our scene.

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny.

Where civil blood make civil hands unclean.

Form forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with heir death, bury their parents strife

A fearful passage of their death marked love

And the continuance of their parents rage

Which, but their children's end nought could remove

Is now the two hours traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend

Peeta read the passage, it had a lot of fancy old words in it, but he understood it. He felt as if the writer had been talking about him and Katniss, although they had never committed suicide for each other, since that would mean he would not be there to read it. But Peeta didn't doubt for one second, that he would put herself in danger for her. For another second, he wondered what he would do if he and Katniss were faced with death, would he sacrifice his life? Peeta knew he probably would, but at the same time, he knew, he was also very cowardly.

…..

His thoughts were interrupted be a soft nock on the door.

"Come in." he croaked, feeling award because he was telling people to come in and it wasn't even his house.

Katniss' perfect face peeked through the door, he would have run up and hugged her if he had the energy, but he didn't, so he just greeted her with a half-smile, since one of his cheeks had a graze on it and it was painful to smile fully.

"There's someone- or some people- here so see you."

"Okay." He said, wondering who would bother to come visit him, but he was grateful, at least he wouldn't be so bored.

A blond man with chiselled features and a tear streaked face strode towards him urgently.

Wheat.

Wheat?

Yes, that was Wheat, followed by Rye and his father. He waited for the last member of his family, but she never came. Typical. Her son almost died and she didn't even have the decency to come see him.

"Peeta, I'm so sorry! What did I do! I was so drunk and I didn't know what I was saying, and I was annoyed! And Rye told me everything, I'm so sorry! Oh god, am I hurting you?" Wheat cried, his voice tasted salty, the truth was, Wheat was hurting him, but he said no anyway, because Wheat was apologising, and, like Katniss, Wheat never apologises, he should cherish this moment. It takes for him to almost die for Wheat to apologise for something .Peeta can see by Wheat's aura, that even though he can be a bit mean without realising it, he isn't a really bad person.

Wheat babbled on, and Katniss came and sat next to him, opposite Wheat. He could feel the heat radiating off her body.

"Where's mum?" Peeta asked, interrupting Wheat's rambling. His father cleared his throat, he hadn't spoke for the whole time and his father's voice sounded a bit raspy, weather it was from lack of use of his voice, or crying Peeta would never know.

"Someone had to look after the bakery." His father said. Everyone, even Wheat stayed silent, they had extra staff to look after the bakery, she could have come if she wanted to. Everyone knew it was a lie, even Katniss; you didn't have to be Mellark to know that Mrs Mellark hated Peeta Mellark.

"Yeah," Rye said eventually, smirking "that or she couldn't bear to see that you have a girlfriend." Both Peeta and Katniss blushed beet red, and Peetas father smacked Rye on the back of the head,

"Rye!"

"Calm down guys, you wouldn't know a joke if it slapped you in the face."

Peeta let out a breathy, relived sigh.

"It doesn't matter Peeta, weather your mother is here or not," his father said "what matters is we love you enough for her as well."

Everyone smiled, Rye and Wheat nodded vigorously, Katniss looked like she didn't know what to do with herself until that is, Katniss bent down to whisper in his ear, he almost didn't catch it, but when he did, he smiled a real smile, not a half one, because he didn't care if it made his cheek hurt like hell.

"See Peeta? You are loved."


	12. Chapter 12

**note: HOLD YOUR ROTTEN TOMATOES! i'm sorry i haven't updated, but i have a legitimate excuse, my laptop spazzed out on me and we only got iy fixed yesterday, so i had to rush through the chapter, sorry if its bad.**

**i'm sorry :(**

**feel free to throw your tomatoes now.**

**i have two different ideas for where to take the story, the better one, in my opinion will take longer to write, if you don't mind listening to my ideas and getting the rest of the story SPOILED then please put IDEANATOR under your review, ideanatiors are very much appreciated :)**

**if you choose to be an ideanator, i will pm you my two plots for how the story could go, and you just say which idea is better.**

**Don't forget to stay awesome :P **

Time had passed, Peetas wounds were healing fast. The Everdeen's looked after him well, they even arranged for his doctor, Jaden, to see him once a week, so far he had missed three weeks of school, he had been granted a six week leave for his wounds to heal, yes he missed his friends (who were the few people that didn't find him a freak) but the ratio of people who found him a creep to people who didn't find him a creep had an extremely large difference, so, Peeta Mellark could not complain.

His brothers and fathers visited him one at a time when they weren't doing shifts at the bakery, of course they still had to work, so they worked out a schedule, wheat would visit first, Rye would visit second an his father would visit last. Occasionally, all two of them, or all three of them would visit at the same time, bit only very occasionally. Even though all this time had passed, he had only seen his mother once, they had an awkward exchange where she sat down on a little cushion she brought herself (because she didn't want filthy seam germs all over her new dress from the tailor in town) Peeta didn't really mind that she only came once. It was a very awkward affair. Katniss looked ready to kill someone after she had left, because of course; she hadn't left without throwing a few hateful comments in the Everdeen's direction. Peeta would say that she was only his mother by blood, but he was too nice for that, and even though she hated him and he knew it, his heart was still big enough to love her. Even though he knew that he would get his heart broken soon enough.

In the time that Peeta had been at the Everdeen's, quite the family scandal had emerged, something about Peetas father and Mrs Everdeen once courting, or Peetas father loving her instead of Peetas mother, Peeta didn't know, but his father had said something along the lines of,

"I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner."

That sentence had seemed to have changed Peetas view about the adults, he understood his mother slightly (only slightly) better, and it made Peeta's father ten times more complex than Peeta thought of him before, he had changed from the humble baker to so much more.

Only Peeta was supposed to know, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut and accidently blabbed it to Wheat, who promptly replied with,

"Meh."

Peeta had reminded Katniss what page she was on in "Romeo and Juliet." For no good reason, and it gave Katniss the incredible idea of reading it to him, from the beginning, whenever they got free time together, Peeta loved the book, people may think that "Romeo and Juliet." Was a very strange thing for a normal thirteen year old boy to be interested in, but Peeta wasn't a normal thirteen year old boy.

On some random day, when Peeta and Katniss were reading Romeo and Juliet, Rye had walked in while Katniss was reading a particularly beautiful speech Mercutio had performed about queen Mab.

Rye never let it go.

He burst into fits of laughter, the silent kind where you laugh so hard, tears come out of your eyes. Now whenever Rye sees Peeta or Katniss he says,

"Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?" in a mocking, high-pitched girly voice. Then practically crawls out the room laughing, like it was the most hilarious, original joke ever.

To say Katniss was annoyed was an understatement.

…

Peeta was sitting around, being bored. Katniss was upstairs, as it was proclaimed by Mrs Everdeen that it was improper for Katniss and Peeta to be in the same room together after eight O clock. No doubt this made Katniss angry, when she first heard the rule, all she did was stomp around the house yelling,

"I'm thirteen mum! Thirteen!"

That didn't make Mrs Everdeen change her mind though.

Shame.

Peeta heard a knock on the door,

"Come in." he croaked

Mrs Everdeen, Primrose Everdeen (who he had nicknamed "little angel" after mistaking her for an angel in his weird half-conscious state) and Katniss Everdeen walked in, very straight faced, one could almost say that they looked sad.

"Peeta,"

"yes." She said quickly, Peeta the feared worst.

"You know the head peacekeeper, Cray?"

"Yes…."

"Well," Mrs Everdeen started, "unfortunately, he has passed away, Sae found him stone cold lying outside his door. He was holding a bottle of beer, poor guy, drunk himself to an early death."

"Oh." Peeta said, no one liked Cray much, the last thing he had was respect, and even people as young as Peeta knew that he took advantage of starving young girls. Even starving young girls as young as Peeta would be taken advantage of, but although he wasn't liked, he was soft. He didn't enforce the rules strictly, in fact, he even _encouraged_ illegal poaching. Peeta liked to think it was because he was nice, but it was probably because he didn't care.

"Who will be the new head peacekeeper?" Peeta said softly, secretly hoping it would be Dairus, then secretly being disgusted with himself for not being more respectful about Cray's death.

This time, Katniss speaks.

"We don't know, he's arriving soon, though they assured us that he would be the very finest peace keeper available." She said worriedly.

Peetas eyes narrowed, he started picking apart her words, wondering who "they" were.

Then it hit him.

The very finest peacekeeper available.

The very finest.

That meant the peacekeeper would be harsh, that meant the peacekeeper would be strict, he would be merciless. That meant the peacekeeper wouldn't buy food from the hob, which would make hunting a lot harder for Katniss. People as young as her could be put to death.

"Don't do anything stupid Katniss." He whispered, making no attempt to hide his worry. Katniss hesitated. Her steely grey eyes met his, and she gave him a soft half smile, one that would make his heart melt if he wasn't so worried about her.

"No promises." She breathed


	13. Chapter 13

**note: hi! sorry i didn't update yesterday, we were out and about and we got stuck in London traffic at like midnight, apparently i fell asleep in the car. anyway, thanks to my ideanators, the general gist i was getting from you guys was mix the two ideas together, so yay!**

**for anyone who wants to listen (you probably don't) me and some friends went to archery classes today woo! i was amazing, we had this competition and i won! ( does dance) archery is so much harder than it looks seriously, the bow is all heavy and the instructor kept scaring us saying that if we did it wrong we might shoot the arrow into our wrists ( even though we had wrist guards) seriously i admire katniss Everdeen, she has serious skill.**

**gale is in this chapter, although i am the most die hard katniss/ peeta shipper ever, i don't hate him, and i wont demonize him and make him into a crazy murderer person set out to destroy peeta like some other fantastic (seriously, i hat e it when people do that)**

**anyway, i'm rambling, bye!**

**and Eid Mubarak if you celebrate it :P**

The new peacekeeper arrived on a Sunday. He didn't do much; he just locked himself in Cray's old house (now his house) and sat there.

Peeta didn't change what his did on a normal day; his worry about the new peacekeeper stopping Katniss hunting had all but disappeared. The new peacekeeper didn't look like he cared much what anyone did, so he just got on with his day like he normal.

Katniss had gone out hunting, he worried at first, but he thought that the new peacekeeper was so wrapped up in his own world to care. So Peeta just sat down and waited for his doctor (Jaden) to arrive.

Jaden arrived roughly thirteen minutes and fifty three seconds to arrive (Peeta counted) like usual he sat down opposite Peeta, and Peeta noted that he never got any paper or pens out. And so his normal session commenced.

Not much new happened. Peeta was asked how his synaesthesia was doing. They worked on things like naming Peetas feelings –which, mind you, Peeta was now quite the expert at- everything was going fine, normal and happy, when Peeta spotted a grey, blue, white and yellow light glowing dimly outside the door, only one person had that aura, with those colours (in that order)

"Gale!" Peeta exclaimed, his arms flailing about, causing him to hit his thumb on the table.

Gale and his doctor looked at Peeta, who was now sheepishly sucking at his thumb. Gale looked confused, Jaden's emotions ranged from surprise to confusion.

Gale put on his emotionless mask so quickly, that Peeta wondered if he had just imagined Gale having emotion.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, was that a hint of anger Peeta detected in his voice?

"I'm… uh... a patient." Peeta replied, positive that Gale wouldn't be able to find an argument to counter that.

"That's right." His doctor, Jaden said, defending him. Peeta quickly looked at him and flashed him a smile of gratitude.

"Why aren't you at the in town, what business do you have in the seam?" Gale asked, Peeta almost groaned, he was positive that Gale wouldn't be able to find a counter argument.

"I think the town is too overrated, I prefer to go to the seam, like this place called the Hob, you've probably never heard of it." Peeta said grinning, he was impersonating the butchers son, who was the town's most annoying (and only) hipster and Gale knew it. Was that a smile, or was Peeta just imagining it?

"Whatever. I was here to see Katniss" Gale said, giving him- yes! - A small smile, and walking out.

When he left, Jaden immediately turned to him.

"How did you know that was Gale?" he asked, worriedly

"I saw his aura." Replied Peeta

"Yes, but was his aura the only thing you saw?"

"Yes…"

"You didn't see any part of his body, or hear him?"

"No?" Peeta said, it ended up sounding more like a question

Jaden began to mumble to himself, a strange expression etched on his face, Peeta found it quite unnerving.

"Listen Peeta, this isn't normal," he began, very seriously.

"I know I'm not normal, no need to rub it in my face." Peeta interrupted jokingly.

"No Peeta, this is serious, we have no time for jokes."

Peeta frowned.

"Peeta, this isn't normal synaesthesia, there's something different about you, something… strange. Normal synaesthesic people who can see auras don't see the persons aura until they actually know who the person is, but you, Peeta, you can see the persons aura, before you see or hear the person, it's almost like you are physic, are you physic?"

"No." Peeta said, too shocked to say anything."

"Peeta, I need to go research this, we need to find out what different in your brain, there is a team of neuro scientists in district four, I'm going to contact them and see what's wrong, I'll be back tomorrow, I need to take a scan of your brain." He said hurriedly, before packing up his suitcase and leaving.

This was too much to take in for Peeta, all his life he hadn't belonged at school, all he knew was that he belonged to a group of people who had synaesthesia, special people, he was sure he would somehow find a synaesthesic friend, and they would bond through their similarities, now, he'd been told he didn't even belong with the group of synaesthesic people.

He didn't belong anywhere.

…..

Katniss came home at five forty seven pm. Peeta always knew when people arrived or when they left, he had seems to have grown some sort of obsession with time.

"What took you so long?" he said, a failed attempt at light- heartedness

"The fence was on." She replied bluntly.

Peetas eyes widened, his cheeks flushed pink, his emotions conflicted, one side of him wanted to shout at her for being careless, the other side wanted to hug her and tell her that she is safe.

"I told you not to do anything stupid!" he shouted, the side that wanted to shout somehow overpowered the other side.

"Yes Peeta and I do believe I said "no promises" so why don't you shut up and stop telling me what to do like you own me?" she said, staring off normal, and getting louder and louder.

Peeta stayed calm, but inside, he was fuming.

"Do you want to go to the hob" she asked, calm again.

"sure." He said

They walked to the Hob like they weren't just shouting at each other two seconds ago.

Before, it was said that the "walked" to the Hob, in fact, Peeta kind of did an awkward limping, he had a cane to help him walk, but it felt strange and every step he took caused pain to shoot up his leg. He put on a brave face though, and it seemed to be working as Katniss was oblivious to his pain.

They walked for what seemed like hours, Peetas leg felt like it was going to fall off, technically, he shouldn't be walking distances longer than one hundred meters.

Oh well.

By now, Katniss and Peeta should have seen the Hob, they should have seen the shabby grey coal dust covered building, they should have seen the miners, with their whooping coughs and their thinning hair, they should have seen the place swarming with traders.

Instead, they saw red, they saw red, orange, yellow, and blue, the colours flickered in their eyes doing their own little dance, looking disgustingly beautiful compared to the grey of district twelve.

Instead they saw smoke, it reached out to them with its dark slender fingers, it drew them closer, dancing around their noses, carrying the smell of malice. It enveloped them in a hug, inciting them with the fake promise of warmth, it took all Peeta had to snap out of the beautiful trance, and realise what was happening.

The Hob was on fire.

So was Katniss' aura.


	14. Chapter 14

**note: hi, fist of all, sorry to anyone who is in hurricane sandy, in London there is never any hurricanes so i cant say i know how you feel, but i imagine it can be very stressful :(**

**we are on 77 reviews twenty three till 100! remember that thing i said about the 70th reviewer a few chapters back? well i'm moving it too 100th reviewer :O if you want to know what the prize is, look through my notes a few chapters back, i cant be bothered to write it again**

**annnyyhoo**

**in chapter three i said " that will be the last time he hears her voice for a long time coming" or something like that, but in fact, he speaks to her later that day soo... just ignore that ok? cool**

**also check out my friends fan fiction accounts one is called THE GIRL ON FIRE 127 and the other is called izzthewolf, she hasn't got any stories, but we are planning to co-write a parody :) we recently had a sleepover with two other friends watching harry potter and the goblet of fire, i just sat there sulking for the day when cedric diggory died ( even though i already watched it :/ )**

**i'm rambling, just read and review!**

Smoke filled Peetas lungs, its distinctive purple colour curling around him, luring him to the flames. Katniss gasped audibly. Peetas first instinct was to run, run and never come back, but he couldn't, it was times like these that truly treated how good of a person he was, would he try to help, or would he run like a coward. This was his common sense against his will to do good.

He spent what felt like hours contemplating the pros and cons of going to help the people at the hob. While coughing and worrying about Katniss, whose eyes were watering, from sadness or from smoke stinging her eyes he would never know. You could almost say it was multitasking.

A scream interrupted his train of thoughts, it sounded like a young child, this was all it took to break Peeta, despite his injured leg he sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him towards the flames. Every step he took caused pain to shoot up his leg, every step he took, Katniss would take a light but speedy step towards the hob too; she kept running until she caught up with him.

Peeta now began to wheeze and cough, he was tired and the smoke wasn't helping either, he was well aware that Katniss had followed him, but his main priority, and only wish, was to help the person who made that terrible scream.

The scene in front of Peeta could only be described as chaotic, although Peeta had expected more people to be at the hob, he thought that most of the people wouldn't risk going to the hob, while there was a new peacekeeper it could be very dangerous.

On the edge of the hob, there was a small child, huddled into himself and crying softly, he had seam looks, dark hair and olive skin, and he looked like he had not yet even lived through seven summers. Bending down he gently took the boys hands away from his face, the boy gasped and looked up at him with large glazed eyes.

"It's okay," Peeta began "you're safe now, well get you home, cuddled up in bed with your family. You just think of home okay? Just think of home, and we'll be there before you know it." The boy looked at him, confused, probably wondering why a merchant was helping him, more specifically the infamous Mrs Mellark's son.

"But you don't know where I live." The boy rasped, the smoke had clearly got to him, as he had finished his sentence with a loud, chesty cough, come to think of it, Peeta hadn't thought of the fact that he didn't know where the boy lived, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

"Don't worry, we'll find it." Peeta said, for the first time noticing the boys aura, it was strange but beautiful, shinier than other auras he had seen, but he shook it off.

Peeta picked up the boy, and put him on his back, he kept coughing loudly then quietly apologising, which almost made Peeta chuckle. Peeta realised that he hadn't thought about Katniss all this time, he started to worry, then realised that she was smart, she was strong too. She would be perfectly safe.

He headed in the direction of the seam, where he assumed the boy lived. He asked the boy to direct him to the place where he lived. When he and Peeta ended up at the community home, a stab of sadness hit Peeta, nut like the thing about the boys shiny aura, he brushed it off.

Peeta had to talk to a lot of people who worked at the community home to get the child some medical attention, when he finally found the medical room, where a healer would help the boy, he put him down on the dirty sheets. He could see fatigue pulling the boy under, his eyes kept drooping closed, until he noticed and snapped his eyes quickly open.

"Shhh… sleep." Peeta said to him in a quiet whisper.

The boy opened his mouth to reply, he was so tiered that Peeta barely heard what he said, the spongy cakey taste of the boys voice whispered to him.

"You have a pretty aura."

….

That night, Peeta went to the Everdeen's house, troubled by what he had been told. Thankfully Katniss was sitting there, watching television, he cocked his eyebrow questioning he, she never watched TV. He was barely listening to Mrs Everdeen telling him that his doctor couldn't make it to take the scan of his brain.

Peeta sat next to Katniss, a little hurt when she shuffled a bit away from him, widening the gap between them.

"You smell of smoke." She said sadly.

Peeta simply nodded.

"What are you watching?" he asked.

"The new head peacekeeper is going to make a speech, its mandatory viewing." She replied, Peeta expected her to sound bitter, but she just sounded hollow, and that was worse.

The seal of Panem flashed on the screen and the anthem blared out, before fading away and leaving the not so appealing face of the new head peacekeeper standing on a podium.

"Law abiding citizens of district twelve, more commonly known as the merchant class. I am your new head peacekeeper, Romulus Thread. Recently, on my long anticipated tour of the district, I discovered a terrible thing."

Pause for effect.

"Did you know that the seam people have built a black market? Right under our noses! It disgusts me, and I'm sure it disgusts you as well! I am pleased to say, that we have burnt it to the ground! Every last trace of it! Eleven seam people passed in the flames, although I cannot say the will be missed…"

As Thread continued to blab on, Peeta, Katniss, Prim and Mrs Everdeen shared a look, although they said nothing, their silence spoke volumes. That was, until Peeta stood up suddenly.

"Thank you, Mrs Everdeen, Primrose, Katniss. Thank you for you hospitality. You are truly good people and I wish you the best for the future, but I think I should leave now, my leg has healed quite a lot, and my family might need me. Katniss, Prim, thank you for being very good friends, and Mrs Everdeen, I will send my father your greetings, goodbye." He said, turning to leave.

Nobody tried to stop him.

…

When Peeta was fourteen, Thread declared that seam were not allowed to marry merchants, Peetas mother was significantly happier, saying that they deserved it, Peeta had never hated her more.

When Peeta turned fifteen, Thread declared that seam people could not shop in merchant shops. They could not sit in merchant seats, they could not use merchant hospitals and seam children could not go to school. That didn't stop Peeta from visiting Katniss though.

When Peeta was sixteen, he visited the Everdeen's, he was always very careful, making sure no one saw him go in or come out. But this time, at least seven peacekeepers stormed in armed with knives and bullets and dragged Katniss and Primrose away from him.

There was nothing he could do.

Their screams haunted his dreams that night.


	15. Chapter 15

**note: hey! this is early woo! i was just laying around, doing nothing when i had a sudden urge to update this, so enjoy! i'm so exited because i have such big plans for this story, shocking twist coming up in chapter 16 yay!**

**i may or may not update tomorrow, ****thank you to SakuraDrops141 for giving me ideas for this chapter :) ****sorry for the grammar mistakes in this story, its normally auto correct :( ****also, i know Peetas meeting an unrealistic amount of snaesthesic people , but there's a reason, i swear! it will all make sense soon.**

**i'm starting to plan my next story, thinking of names for it right now. so its either going to be called, dark rose, garden of shadows or rose garden.**

**as you can see the reoccurring themes are roses, gardens and shadows, a big part of the story is a rose garden, which always looks like there are shadows in it. put your Favorite name in a review or make up your own, i don't care :)**

Peeta woke up screaming. Rye, who slept in the bed next to him, looked at him with a half worried, half groggy expression. In this nightmare Peeta had watched peacekeepers beat Katniss and Prim repeatedly, killing them in horrifying ways, a new way every time. Just when Peeta thought his brain could not possibly make up another way for them to die, it thought up one ten times more horrible and sadistic. The only thing that made him okay with it is that he had an unnerving ability to wake up after a nightmare through his own will.

Rye, being a loving, caring brother (his words, not Peetas) raided their family's stash of sleep syrup Peeta took two teaspoons of the stuff. No one in their family was a healer, so he had no idea how long it would knock him out for. Rye looked satisfied as slowly, tentatively, Peeta brought the spoon of sleep syrup in his mouth.

Sleep syrup was disgusting. It tasted sickly sweet and Peeta made a face as he forced himself to swallow. Sleep syrup made him hear a fiddle. He tried to cover his ears as the fiddle screeched with music only he could hear. Peeta should be annoyed, but it was too late, he was already beginning to feel drowsy.

If peeta (or Rye) thought that the sleep syrup would help they were wrong. Horribly wrong. He was locked in his nightmares. Normally he would be able to force himself awake, but he couldn't escape them. He couldn't even thrash around in his sleep. He just lay, still as a corpse. Locked in his terrors. Another thing the sleep syrup could do was make his nightmares more vivid, normally they had a shiny quality about them, and he knew they weren't real. These nightmares didn't, he couldn't tell what was real, and he couldn't tell what wasn't. So he just lay there. Slowly losing his sanity.

When Peeta woke up, it was midday; he was too shaken to be upset with himself for waking up so late. He sat on his bed, shivering even though it was a hot summer's day. It actually took him an hour an twenty eight minutes to get up.

Peeta decided to take a walk in the square, wasn't the best place to think. It was a bit too crowded, but he couldn't bear going to the seam. It would remind him of Katniss and Prim.

There was a big crowd gathering around something in the square. He quickly strode over, wondering what all the fuss was about. When people saw him, they all began to whisper. Cautiously, Peeta looked around.

"Someone should tell the Mellark kid to go away."

"Yeah, he's going to be so mad."

"He shouldn't get involved in this, too much for a sixteen year old boy."

"Yeah, why does he even care? They're just seam scum."

"Totally agree with you."

Peeta pushed his way through the crowd, he was to worried to even glare at the two girls taking about him, but as he walked past them, he tapped the taller one on the shoulder and said,

"You know, you should really learn to whisper more quietly."

If Peeta wasn't so upset, he would have found the look on her face hilarious.

As he got closer to the centre of the crowd, he began to see a purple glow.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

The person being whipped had dark brown hair, almost black, behind her, waiting for her share of the lashings was a little blonde girl, she caught his eye, and mouthed something at him.

"Run."

This unhinged Peeta to no end, it was Prim, little Prim, Primmy, who loved animals and licking icing of cakes, and if Prim was there, that must mean that the girl being whipped was Katniss. That must mean that the crumpled limp, bleeding body belonged to Katniss.

Peeta sprang into action.

He jumped in front of the whip, and he got lashed in the shoulder, dangerously close to his neck, it began to swell and blood poured out.

"Stop!" he shouted.

The crowd fell eerily silent.

"Stop! Stop! Stop it! Cant you see you're killing her? She didn't even do anything! Leave her alone and her sister too!"

The peacekeeper who was whipping Katniss opened his mouth to reply, but not before a voice rang out from the crowd of people below.

"Listen to the boy! Stop, I think she's had her required lashings, just stop already!"

Peetas mouth fell open when he realised who the voice belonged to.

The one, the only Haymitch Abernathy.

Haymitch's golden hair was dishevelled and desperately needed cutting, his face was grimy and you could tell he hadn't shaved in a while, his shirt was untucked and the tie was loose, there was a four inch long rip in his blazer.

Yet, Peeta couldn't help but respect the man.

When he stepped out from the crowd, everyone one looked at him in shock and fear. Even the peacekeeper looked afraid of him, to some degree.

To Peetas surprise, the peacekeeper immediately let go of Katniss and Prim.

"Sorry Mr Abernathy."

"You better be." Replied Haymitch

…..

Once people realised that no one was going to be whipped to death, they cleared away, a lady from the seam who apparently new Katniss gave them a sheet of fabric to help them carry her.

Peeta and Prim began to lead Katniss to her house in the seam. Until, Haymitch Abernathy seemed to materialise out of nowhere. He began to talk to Peeta in a low, urgent whisper.

"No, don't take her back there, it's only going to happen again, it isn't safe here." He said, weirdly this new information didn't shock Peeta in the slightest, but he nodded his head slowly to appease Haymitch.

"Listen…" he continued, speaking even quieter. "Word has it, that its only going to get worse, Thread, he's getting even more sadistic. He wants to kill of all the seam people, he's setting up killing camps as we speak, he's going to tell the seam people that they're work camps. And you know how desperate some people are for work, they'll be ready in little over a year. You have to leave. You have to run."

Peeta was reminded of Prims warning to him when he found Katniss being whipped

"But what about my friends, and not to mention my family!" Peeta said

"Boy, I've been through things you can't imagine, I've done things you wouldn't dream of doing, I've seen things you only see in your nightmares, and boy, take it from me, stop caring about friends and family."

He paused, and looked off into the distance, like he was remembering something terrible.

"They all get taken away from you in the end."


	16. Chapter 16

**note: ahhhhh! i cant wait for you guys to read this chapter! its my longest chapter, and you meet finnick yay! you guys should be proud of me two updates on consecutive days yay!**

**i just randomly want to recommend two fanfics that I read this morning, one is called "a way with words" and the other is called "don't go gentle" seriously guys read them! I was crying like a baby by the end of them :) (in a good way)**

**we have ninetyone reviews guys, we've had nine reviews for a chapter before, we can do it again! everyone who reviews this chapter gets a shout out and the one hundredth reviewer gets a special prize that i mentioned a few chapters back, we can do it guys! come on! **

**heres a little dance, just for you guys**

**0(-.-0)... (0-.-0)... (0-.-)0**

Haymitch lead them across the seam, Peeta and Prim shared confused looks but followed him anyway, who were they to question the great Haymitch Abernathy?

Soon enough they ended up at the fence separating district twelve from the woods, okay, Peeta decided, now they can question Haymitch Abernathy.

"Why are we here?" said Prim, it seemed she had beaten Peeta to the questioning

"Yeah!" Peeta agreed

"Do you want to live?" Haymitch said

Peeta and Prim said nothing, because really, what can you say to that?

"That's what I thought, now shut up and follow me."

The rest of the trip was silent and awkward, Haymitch had not offered to carry Katniss, like a good gentleman would, put Peeta was okay with that, it's not like he'd _let_ Haymitch Abernathy carry her, no matter how much he helped them, Peeta still had a weird niggling fear at the back of his mind that Haymitch would snatch Katniss away from him and kill her.

Peeta had never been in the woods, (the real woods, not the meadow) Prim says she had been once, but Katniss never took her again because she was terrible at hunting. Though, Peeta knew this wasn't the reason, sure Katniss could be bitter and kind of mean sometimes, but she wasn't mean enough to stop Prim going to the woods if Prim wanted to, he was pretty sure Prim never came to the woods because she didn't like the woods. Peeta could understand that, the trees were tall and slender, they looked menacing, towering over them and casting shadows everywhere, more than once Peeta had thought someone was following him and looked behind him, only to find that no one was there, only the rustling of the wind, but, at the same time he knew why Katniss loved the woods so much, it had a strange sort of beauty and peace, Peeta felt free in the woods, even though he was practically being kidnapped by Haymitch Abernathy.

They had been walking for ages, the sun had set and the moon was illuminating the forest, casting shadows that made Prim look twice as young as she really was. Haymitch found a little space underneath a rowan tree and sat down, insisting they sleep there. Peeta and Prim looked at him as if he had told them to dump Katniss' body in a river.

"Where are we even going, and how long will it take to get there?" asked Peeta

"Four days." Haymitch replied, completely ignoring the first question

"Where are we going?" Peeta repeated, a little more harshly this time, stressing every word

Haymitch sighed and gestured for Prim and Peeta to come closer, as the leaned in, he began to speak.

"I'm going to tell you where we are going, okay kids?" Peeta groaned at his use of the word "kids" he was sixteen.

"When I tell you," he continued "you have to promise you won't chicken out, this isn't a game, this is real, this is very real. Swear you won't back out." Haymitch demanded.

"I swear." Peeta and Prim said in unison

Haymitch gave them an approving look and a sort of twisted smile and held out his pinkie finger.

"pinkie swear?" he said, which made Prim roll her eyes and Peeta narrow his eyes, analysing his words, reluctantly, he held out his pinkie finger and wrapped it around Haymitch's grimy one.

"Pinkie swear." He said, unwrapping his pinkie finger from Haymitch's so Prim could do the same.

"So," said Prim nonchalantly "where are we going?" Haymitch took a deep breath before answering,

"District 13."

….

Peeta and Prim protested at first, saying that district thirteen didn't exist, and there were only twelve districts and whatnot, but Haymitch shut them up, so they just picked up Katniss and went on their merry way.

Five days later, and Peeta was growing to like Haymitch, he had an unexpected amount of knowledge of the woods, and he had saved Peeta's life, stopping him from eating deadly nightlock berries. He had also managed to wake Katniss up, she was very weak at first, but still protested when they tried to carry her, insisting that she walk herself. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Haymitch managed to sedate her with some sleep syrup. Which he coincidently carried in his pocket.

Haymitch had said that it would take them four days to reach District thirteen, when in fact, it took them six, finally the forest began to thin, and Peeta saw a large clearing, it wasn't a pile of rubble like he expected, but at the same time, there was nothing there.

"Hey Haymitch," Peeta said "I thought there was supposed to be a district here?"

"There is." He replied, leading them to a tiny little gate which was concealed by a clump of trees.

"Here we are kids," Haymitch said "District thirteen. It's underground, so someone will come up and take you down in a lift." Peeta had no idea what a lift was, but he just let him speak "you go ahead, I'll have to be back in district twelve soon."

"Why? Aren't you coming?" asked Peeta

"don't want people getting suspicious, but Peeta, Prim, we're going to have to tell district twelve that you all died, I'm going to tell them that Katniss' wounds got infected and she died in her sleep, and you two committed suicide because you couldn't bear life without her okay?"

Peeta thought about this for a while wondering what he would do if Katniss really died. Then he thought of something.

"Haymitch, can you tell my father and my brothers where we are? And Mrs Everdeen, but don't tell my mother, she's a bit of a gossip." He said, somewhat bitterly.

"sure." Said Haymitch "well, I best be of now, I have a long trip ahead of me."

"okay." Prim said looking at Haymitch, before running over to him and engulfing him in a bone crushing hug.

"Thank you." She whispered. And was that just Peeta, or was Haymitch getting teary?

"Oh, and Peeta." Haymitch said, after Prim let him go."

"Yes"

"Stay alive." He said, bringing his hand to his head and saluting Peeta

"I will." Peeta said, bringing his own hand to his head and standing up straight to return the salute

"Goodbye Haymitch." He said quietly after watching him melt into the forest and following the district thirteen citizens into the "lift"

…..

Almost immediately after he had got inside district thirteen, a man called him and told Peeta to follow him.

"Oh," said Prim quietly " we've only been here five minutes and you're already being called to important meetings."

Peeta chuckled and gave her a hug before following the man into a room. The room had many people in it, mingling and talking, and doing nothing in particular, but the strange thing is, they all had a weird aura, like the one the boy he saved from the fire had, the one who told him he had a pretty aura. Nobody took notice of him though, and Peeta felt kind of lonely wandering around, doing nothing, that was, until a handsome man with bronze hair and pearly teeth walked up to him.

"Hey, I'm Finnick, what's your name?" he asked, holding out his hand to shake

"I'm Peeta" he replied, shaking Finnick's hand

"So, Peeta." Finnick said casually, "Got any secrets?" he asked. Peeta felt like bursting out in laughter, they had just met and Finnick was asking him about his deepest secrets. Peeta decided to play along, and told him a secret that really, he wouldn't mind sharing.

"Actually I do." Peeta said "I have this thing, it's called synaesthesia." To Peetas surprise, Finnick burst out laughing, his laughter rang across the room and everybody turned to look at them.

"Good one peeta." He said, adding to Peeta's confusion "everyone has synaesthesia here." Peeta tried to hide his shock; he just chuckled like he knew that all along.

"Hey Finnick, why are we here?" Peeta asked.

"What synaesthesic people?"

"yeah." Peeta said what else?

Finnick hesitated, his face fell, the happy charming guy he had met had all but disappeared, he looked straight at Peeta and lowered his voice.

"Peeta, do you know about the killing camps being set up for seam people?"

"yes." Peeta said, he knew that, but how did Finnick? Finnick definitely was not from his district, how would he know?

"It's not just seam people." He said "it's been in the making for years, every district has its seam, im from district four, in our district, anyone without bronze hair is being discriminated against, the capitol, they have this vision of perfect people, Peeta." Finnick paused

"Synaesthesic people aren't part of that vision."

Before peeta could process this information, Finnick continued.

"The capitol, they're herding all the synaesthesic people to district twelve, to be killed with the seam people. You don't notice it at first, it starts off with this crackpot doctor treating you. He "treated" me," Finnick said bitterly "Then he told me he had to take a scan of my brain and disappeared, do you know what he was really doing Peeta?"

Peeta said nothing, his stomach was churning, this sounded awfully familiar.

"He was going to the capitol Peeta, to tell them he had lured in one more person to kill."

"What was his name?" Peeta finally said, he sounded weak, his voice cracked at the end. He just prayed that he wouldn't say that name.

"He told me his name was Jaden."

Peeta let out a strangled cry, Jaden, his nice doctor, he had lured him in, and right now he was in the capitol telling them that he was one more person to kill. Jaden didn't like him, to Jaden, Peeta was just another victim.

Only one thought went through Peetas head.

Betrayal.


	17. Chapter 17

**note: hi! sorry i didn't update, i was busy and stuff. but on the the exciting news!**

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The rest of the day went by in a daze for Peeta. After a few minutes, a severe looking woman with dead straight grey hair made a speech, mostly repeating everything Finnick had told him. What Peeta had gathered was that people who are in high risk of being killed in a "concentration" camp (as they now called them) were being taken to thirteen, this included the synaesthesic population of Panem, so far, around 92% of the synaesthesic population were in thirteen, this was around 250 all people in Panem. The severity of synaesthesia among the synaesthesic people in the room varied, but Peeta was among those with very, very severe synaesthesia.

Peeta bid goodbye to Finnick, who then complained that peeta was acting too reserved. Peeta didn't care though, he felt like his whole life had been a lie, all the days he had spent, staring impatiently out of his foggy window for his doctor, were actually spent staring impatiently out the window for a power- hungry murderer.

Oh well.

Peeta collapsed on his bed, in his room number 234. Katniss was still sleeping off her sleep syrup, and this was Peeta's last day of freedom before he got his official district 13 schedule Imprinted on his arm. He decided to sleep, it was the most interesting thing he could do.

And so he slept.

He instantly regretted it, his sleep was plagued with nightmares, this one was strange, he was watching Katniss on a television in the hall where he met Finnick. Somehow, Peeta knew in the dream he was feeling uneasy, he could feel the nausea, he could feel the cold sweat on his hands, he could hear the concerned whispering going on between the citizens of thirteen, it turned out Peetas sub-conscious mind was stronger than he once thought.

On the TV, Katniss was wearing a shining costume, it was dark and mysterious, feathers and glitter covered her body, her sleeves were the purest white though, she was holding up a sleek, slender bow and she was poised on her toes, what little make up she wore only intensified her beauty and highlighted her best features, peeta thought she resembled a bird. A mockingjay.

She was making a speech; Peeta could tell by the steady flow of colours pouring out of her mouth and the continuous taste of strong but sweet mint filling his mouth. District thirteen's reactions to the speech were quite pleasing, they smiled, some- no most of them looked inspired, and one plump looking lady ran out the room because she was too overcome with emotion.

Peeta thought her speech was going well and secretly smiled to himself, well, not really secretly because Finnick saw and gave him a sharp toothed grin.

There was a flash of movement near the crowd of people behind Katniss.

Bang!

The noise made everyone in thirteen jumps, but Peetas eyes were glued to the screen. The video must have been out of sync with the sound because after the bang a bullet hit her side.

She crumpled to the floor.

Peeta cried out in shock.

And all he could do was watch as the blood slowly drained from Katniss' body.

Peeta suddenly sat up, his sheets were wet with sweat, it was uncomfortable and too hot but that was the least of Peetas worries.

Peeta, it seemed had lost all his sanity, something inside his snapped. He couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't, he couldn't remember if the vision was a dream or reality, Katniss could be dead.

And it would all be his fault.

Suddenly, Peeta couldn't take it anymore, he ran out the room in search of Katniss.

…

Peeta ran frantically through twisted corridors and dark walls that seemed to close in on him until he reached a dark grey door made of metal that was district thirteen's hospital, he banged on the door. Screaming, crying telling the people on the other side to open up or else. When no one came to him, he ran up to the door, full speed, shoulder first, hoping to bust the metal open.

Someone opened the door before he crashed into it though; he collapsed in a heap on the floor, still screaming. The person who opened the door just stood there and stared.

"Katniss!" Peeta cried " I need to see Katniss, the gun…bullets…whips, mockingjay! Speech…crying…blood… sharp toothed grin…bow…slender bow… I can't!" he screamed, kicking his legs out like a three year old having a tantrum.

"Boggs!" the lady screamed "Boggs! Get in here!"

A shivering, crying Peeta suddenly felt himself being lifted up by strong arms, Peeta tried to ignore the Goosebumps decorating the arms flesh, no doubt he was disturbed. Every step the man took made Peeta jump, which made Peeta say a new nonsense sentence about Katniss being shot.

Peeta was dumped on a bed; he did nothing but scream and shiver on his bed for a good five minutes while the doctors attached various items to him, before he was "sane" enough to look around the room.

No surprise, everything in the room was grey.

There- it was a flash of deep purple.

Then he saw her, her hair was fanned around her head in halo, her pink lips were parted and she was breathing heavily, her eyelids were closed, concealing her stormy grey eyes from his view, he wanted nothing more than to open them.

They may not ever open again.

He collapsed next to her, and let out a rattling scream.

He hugged her tightly, and for no reason, traced the word always on her back. He had no idea why he did it, but it felt right for the moment, this time, the word was not so much a statement, or a question, it was a promise, a promise for what, Peeta had no idea.

He took her hand, it was warm and soft, but was still hardened from years hunting in the words and being independent.

Something tinkled.

For the first time, he saw a slivery glint, and noticed the matching bracelets on their wrists.

"Mentally disorientated." They read.


	18. Chapter 18

**note: hey there! in this chapter I've tried to do a slightly different writing style, more like pesusonymous bosch in the secret series, i also made peeta a little more like Max-Ernest in this chapter (being a die hard C****ass-Ernest shipper) tell me what you think of it :) okay cool? sorry for the spelling mistakes :) ill try not to ramble on in this AN so..**

**review please?**

**byeeeeeee!**

The story of how Katniss got her "mentally disorientated" bracelet is quite a simple one. Katniss actually did wake up while Peeta was fraternizing (or something like that) with Finnick Odair in his room full of synaesthesic people. When Katniss woke up, she momentarily forgot where she was, Katniss panicked a lot. Especially when some woman told her that Prim was not in the room, even though the poor woman meant that Prim was in compartment 307, where Katniss was meant to be. She still panicked; she thought that Prim had been left behind in district twelve. That was when Katniss went into full blown hysteria, screaming for various important people in her life, she screamed so much that her wounds were re-opening and the doctors had to sedate her to stop her causing too much harm to herself.

Katniss screamed for many people, Prim mostly, her mother, Gale, Peeta, Madge ,even Haymitch, which lead to the doctors having a very awkward conversation with Haymitch over the phone ( yes Haymitch had a phone) about his non-existent "relationship" with Katniss, after the phone call was over Haymitch proceeded to drown himself in liquor, to forget his embarrassment.

Katniss did scream for Peeta, once or twice, about the same amount of times she screamed for Gale, but mostly, she screamed for Primrose, sorry to disappoint.

You could believe my version, the true one, or you could make up a story about Katniss screaming for Peeta and suddenly realising how much she loves him, and then they'll fall into a swirling vortex of heat, love and passion together. Make it fluffy, or angsty, I don't care. Use it to satisfy all you cheese balls out there, in fact you can write a short paragraph about it below.

.

.

.

.

.

Now that the cheese is out of your system, we back to the story, if you'll allow it. Yes? Thank you.

When Peeta woke up, Katniss was already awake and staring at him with huge grey eyes, she sat uncomfortably on the bed, no doubt the whip wounds were causing her pain. When she saw him wake up, he noticed she opened her eyes wider, which made him cry out in shock, which made her chuckle.

"Look at us." Peeta said "I always knew we'd end up mentally disorientated."

"I'm not mentally disorientated." She said

"mmhhmm."

"What? I'm not! Neither are you!" she said

Peeta looked at her for a second, he couldn't think of a reply so they just sat through an awkward silence.

"When I was nine," he began "I cut all my hair to exactly the same length, because I believed in equality for all hairs, there was never any hair even on millimetre shorter than the other, it was all spiky, and people thought I was weird, but I loved it." He said, looking for Katniss' reaction.

To his surprise, she laughed out loud, her laugh was like music to his ears, and although he had heard her laugh many times before, he always felt a weird sense of accomplishment.

"I'm afraid of mayonnaise." He said after she finished laughing

"You know my mother, she was actually born into a very rich family, they have their own cooks and everything, and they were making some mayonnaise in a pot when we went to visit them when I was little, somehow I got into the pot of mayonnaise and I almost drowned in it, besides, it's disgusting anyway."

Katniss burst in to another round of musical laughter, Peeta chuckled along with her while watching a green minty flow of colours come out of her mouth.

"Have you ever tried chocolate?" he asked

She shook her head, No.

"It's the most amazing thing you will ever try, I've only had a few bars in my life, but I've learnt that with chocolate, the darker the better, I used to imagine that every time I took a bite, It would transport me deep into the past, and I'd make friends with a jester who had pointy ears."

Katniss laughed again, Peeta found himself addicted to the sound, he just wanted to hear it again, and again, and again. So he continued.

"I used to pretend I was a homunculus."

"What's that?" Katniss said through her laughter.

"It's a manmade man, very short, only about 60-90cm long, an alchemist would make them from special materials, including cow dung, they have massive hands, feet and lips, it also has a pot belly, it can eat anything whole, even a human. I always wanted to be a homunculus; I would call myself Mr Cabbage face."

Katniss laughed again, Peeta smiled.

"See? Try to say I'm not mentally disorientated now."

"I stand corrected." Katniss said, still laughing.

…..

A few minutes after their conversation, a man came in, Peeta recognised the large hairy, goose bumped arms he had, he was the one that took him into this weird grey room, was his name Biggs? Boggs?

A few seconds later a woman appeared behind him, she had a strange nose, like she constantly smelt something very unpleasant.

"You are required to go to Coin." He said bluntly

"Where's that?" Katniss asked

"Not where, who. Have some respect."

Katniss said nothing, but it was very clear that respect was the last thing she was thinking about.

The woman with the strange nose jumped in and spoke before anyone could think of something to say.

"They can't though Boggs! They're mentally disorientated! Besides, the girl has those wounds." She said carefully, Katniss wrapped her arms around herself self-consciously, the backless top she was wearing stretched a little wider, which made her groan.

"They seemed perfectly fine when they were talking about mayonnaise and whatnot, besides we'll just wheel the girl's bed to coin."

Boggs and the strange nosed woman continued to talk like Katniss and Peeta weren't there, secretly, Peetas blood boiled, how could they have the nerve to spy on them having a private conversation? Peeta could be confessing his undying love (which he planned to do soon) and they would just be sitting there listening, do they not think that Katniss and Peeta would at least want a little bit of privacy?

The two adults seemed to have reached an agreement, they would go to Coin, Katniss' bed would be wheeled there, like Boggs had originally suggested, out of the corner of his eye, Peeta could see Katniss silently fuming, she hated having to depend on others.

With a sigh, Peeta stood up to go see coin or whatever.

Katniss looked at him.

"Um… Peeta?"

"Hmm?"

"How about some trousers?" she said quietly, so no one would hear, Peeta blushed bright red, for the first time seeing his extremely short (surprise, surprise) grey! Hospital gown, which put every bit of his very pale legs on show to the whole room.

Katniss had said it quietly, as not to embarrass Peeta, but Boggs and the woman still picked up on it.

"I don't mind!" the woman laughed "handsome one he is." Peeta blushed again, he was sure that he closely resembled a tomato by now.

Boggs rolled his eyes and laughed at the woman.

"Don't expect me to be too impressed, I just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear."


	19. Chapter 19

**note: hey guys! just to let you know, between now and Saturday i'm putting up a parody fic called "oh, how realistic." about the very unrealistic things people include in their fics ( i may or may not be a little hypocritical but oh well) and also, my schedule is meant to be Saturday and Wednesday but i never stick to it, i'm not really a schedule type person, i don't like feeling obliged to update even if a chapter is really bad, so, cool :) **

**Reveiw for a Mellark Bakery cookie!**

**byeeeeee!**

After, somewhat- awkwardly putting on his trousers, Peeta and Katniss were escorted to Coin (well Peeta was escorted, Katniss was…pushed) Boggs seemed to get quiet and nervous when going to Coin, the smiling man who joked about Finnick Odair in his underwear was off somewhere else, this Boggs wore a hardened expression, and his arms always seemed to be tensed.

Peeta tried to imagine Coin, he imagined a somewhat stocky, medium height man, with dark brown hair covering his arms as well as his head, he imagined Coin to be clean shaven, but always wearing a scowl, and not a cute one like Katniss did, a real scary one, one that could make the toughest people melt on the spot.

Boggs pushed the doors to a room, on the end of that room was another door, the door was seeping with grey, it was coming out of the gaps like fog, curling up around the four visitors and caressing their faces, the annoying thing was that, Peeta knew that only he could see the fog, he found it hard to believe that others couldn't see something so – suffocating. The scary thing was, Peeta guessed that this fog was someone's aura, someone's aura that was completely grey, now Peeta had never seen a completely grey aura, but he guessed that meant Coin was probably incapable of human emotion.

Boggs made a strange grunting noise when he opened the door, most of the grey seeped out at once, almost as if it was desperate to leave the room, but that can't have been true, because there was still a small amount of grey illuminating a chair at the end of the room.

The chair turned out to be a revolving chair; it slowly turned around, while the person sitting in it was still completely covered in shadows. Peeta thought of saying that he thought that was a bit too over dramatic, but now was no time to be voicing such thoughts. Coin slowly stepped out of the shadows, he was shocked to see that it was the same grey haired woman who had talked to the synaesthesic people at their little gathering, he may have knew her name once, but forgotten it and he hadn't noticed her aura there, that's probably because she was boring him, or because he was too busy feeling betrayed, [eeta thought bitterly.

Coin wasted no time, she didn't seem like one to faff about, she was more a get straight to the point type.

"Soldier Everdeen, Soldier Mellark, we want you to lead the rebellion." She said

Peeta almost did a spit take, although he wasn't drinking anything, Katniss eyes grew wide, and she scowled her most ferocious scowl.

"You want what!" she practically screamed. Peeta glared at her, sure that was his immediate reaction, but who would go shouting at someone like Coin? (Katniss, obviously)

"What she meant to say..." Peeta said, looking pointedly at Katniss "is that, with all due respect, we do not believe we are ready to do something like that, we only just arrived and-"

"Silence!" she shouted, banging her hands down on the desk, the noise shattered through the silence in the room and Peeta thought he even saw Katniss jump.

"I am the leader of thirteen; you will do as I say!"

Katniss stayed silent, much to Peetas relief, but she continued to glare at Coin and Peeta was reminded of the phrase "if looks could kill"

"Now…" Coin said, breathing steadily and loudly in and out, making a great show of trying to calm her.

"Soldier Everdeen, Soldier Mellark, you may not know this, but someone in the crowd was filming when Soldier Everdeen was being whipped and Mellark saved her-"

"Wha-"Katniss began

Coin looked at her.

"No." Coin said, as if scolding a small child.

"As I said before I was so rudely interrupted, someone involved with the rebellion filmed it, and it was sent to thirteen, we then infiltrated the Capitol broadcast and aired a propo including the whipping instead of some required viewing. Thanks to you and out technician Soldier Beetee, you are the talk of Panem, the Capitol doesn't like being showed up, and we showed them up, therefore, as you are already quite famous with the people of Panem, you would be the perfect two people to lead the rebellion, you are young and more influential than any of us, so it must be you." Coin paused before saying "Now I'm not giving you a choice, you may not back out or I will personally organise your executions."

Peeta breathed heavily, this couldn't be true, could it? It was remarkable how much his life had changed in such a short period of time, he can't lead a rebellion, he didn't have nearly enough courage to lead a rebellion. It all felt surreal, like it was a dream and his thirteen year old self would wake up any second in his lumpy bed in the bakery.

"What about my wounds?" Katniss asked, he voice cracked in a heart-breaking way at the end, this was just a feeble attempt to get her to change her mind.

"That won't put me off; we have highly trained doctors who will get your back stronger than it ever was, before the next full moon."

Katniss' eyes welled up. Peeta seemed to be the only one who noticed though, because her tears were gone just as quick as they came. She just blinked a few times and they were gone.

"There will be no messing about, this job could just be the most important job in the rebellion, Soldier Mellark, your training starts tomorrow, starting from now, you are no longer mentally disorientated, Everdeen, your training starts as soon as your back heals, you too are no longer mentally disorientated."

Katniss and Peeta nodded, because really, what else could they say?

"You have my permission to leave." Coin said

They filed out silently, Peeta felt like now, his life was just beginning, everything before was unimportant.

This is where his life starts.


	20. Chapter 20

**note: okay sorry! i'm well aware that i haven't updated in too long but i found a book called "divergent" and for a while, my sole purpose in life was to finish it, and i got a bit carried away, but i'm now on the second book "insurgent" yay! has anyone read divergent? if you have what do you think? i personally love Tobias, but ****he's nothing on Peeta :)**

Peetas hand stung slightly when he put it into the wall, the small amount of pain made him see bright colours. The black ink contrasted against his pale skin. Really, Peeta didn't care what was on his arm, he was going to skip all of this anyway and wait for Katniss to wake up, but some things did get his attention.

0800-0830: garbage Peeta didn't care about

0830-1000: more garbage Peeta didn't care about

1000-1200: training

1200-1400: translates as "go watch Katniss sleep"

1400:1800: command

1800-2200: translates as "go hide somewhere"

2200: lights out

Those were interesting, but Peeta couldn't help but wonder what he'd be doing in command that lasted four hours, he shrugged and pulled his sleeve down over his schedule, he had two hours until the first thing he had on his schedule that he was actually going to go to.

Katniss wasn't awake, Peeta checked, she was still sleeping after she got injected with medicine to help her back heal faster, from the screams she made, peeta guessed she'd be asleep for quite a while longer.

Oh well, Peeta thought, better go hide in the supply closet

The sharp points of the pencils jabbed into his sides, poking his skin, decorating it with tiny red dents. Rulers stabbed into his other side, he was forced to stay completely still. Paper hung over his eyes and he was standing over a box that read "100 erasers" it wasn't the most comfortable arrangement, but Peeta was happy to spend the 1 hour and fifteen minutes he had left to kill before he had to go to training.

Randomly, Peeta began to laugh.

Now there are a lot of reasons why you and I would laugh when we are alone, maybe, you think, Peeta remembered a funny joke his friend told him when he was little, maybe one of the school supplies was tickling him. Maybe he was laughing because he felt ill and someone told him that laughter was the best medicine.

Now that we've thought of some perfectly good reasons why Peeta would laugh randomly, I can just leave you to figure it out for yourself.

No? Okay… fine then, you're very demanding aren't you?

Peeta was actually laughing because this was something typical of Katniss, hiding away in a supply closet where no one could find him, that's something, so very Katniss of him to do, and whether Peeta liked it or not, she was rubbing off on him.

Really, when you think about it, Peeta should be rubbing off on her. Katniss was a terrible influence on him.

The supply closet was dusty and he had to stop himself from sneezing numerous times by whispering the word "pineapple" over and over again, which then made him laugh as he imagined someone walking in on him cuddled up with some stationary and whispering pineapple, no doubt he would be back to his room for the mentally disorientated.

After that Peeta scolded himself, because he was laughing and he was supposed to be staying as silent as possible so no one would find him.

Then Peeta laughed because he was acting like he was mentally disorientated.

Then he scolded himself.

Then he laughed.

Then he scolded himself.

Then he realised that he probably was very mentally disoriented.

This cycle continued for one hour and sixteen minutes, and Peeta was right in the middle of the "scolding himself" stage when he realised he was one minute late for training.

On the way out, he knocked over two pots of pencils, four rulers, and squished a pack of erasers.

Peeta was already tired when he arrived at training, where a soldier told him off for being late and told him to join the others in a 5km run.

He wasn't about to protest, you see, no matter how much of Katniss had rubbed off on him, Peeta just want the protesting type, unless the subject really needed to be protested against, he just joined the others on the run as he was told to.

The "others" that were mentioned consisted of fourteen and fifteen year olds, and Peeta immediately felt embarrassed, this is the level they thought he was at, with a bunch of fourteen year olds, and he was meant to be leading the rebellion!

Leading, leading, leading. The fact hadn't yet sunk in, he was leading a rebellion along with Katniss, it felt unreal, they would be a symbol of a rebellion together, Peeta wasn't quite sure how big the rebellion really was, but he decided to stick to the false hope that it was a very small one, he didn't want to be leading a huge one, that could turn out to be a full scale war. Then what would happen? People would die, they may not even win, then he and Katniss could be taken prisoner and tortured an-

"Mellark, stop dawdling, or I will add an extra kilometre to the run!" a deep voice called out making him jump and tearing him out of his thoughts.

The rest of the group grumbled and shot him evil looks, if looks could kill, he would be dead at least thirty times over, and it would be a very slow painful death. He forced himself to run faster, if an extra kilometre was added, he didn't want to be the cause of it.

Peeta ran as fast as his legs could carry him, soon enough he was running ahead of the pack grinning to himself as he ran, he as tempted to call out " you call that dawdling?" and laugh, but Peeta wanted to stay on everyone's good sides, so he just smiled smugly and raced ahead.

The run was over, Peeta say hunched over, panting, it wasn't a race but he still liked to think that he had won, he had a good twenty seconds on the person that finished second, who looked like he wanted to murder Peeta slowly…with a spoon…a plastic one.

The instructor talked about guns for the rest of training, which Peeta didn't listen to as he had no interest whatsoever in holding one.

Soon enough, Peeta found himself back in the supply closet, catching his breath and falling back into his old routine,

Laugh.

Scold.

Laugh.

Scold.

Eventually, Peeta took his mentally disorientated bracelet, tied it around his ankle, and pulled his sock up over it where no one could see, officially, he was perfectly sane, but Peeta decided that he was mentally disorientated and he liked it, so why not wear the bracelet?

….

The only people at command were Peeta and President Coin. No Katniss, no Boggs, no guards, and it was uncomfortable.

"Take a seat soldier mellark." Coin said, after half a minute of staring at him. He cautiously sat down and Coin offered him some bread and soup, tentatively, he took a piece of bread and nobbled slowly, until discovering that he was ravenous and devouring the whole thing.

Coin looked at him like how an animal would look at its prey.

"That's right, soldier Mellark, eat up, I was told you weren't at any meals today, though I suspect you found that supply closet quite comfortable."

Peeta choked on his soup. He thought she was being nice, but no, she was just trying to unnerve him, How did she know he was in the supply closet anyway? Did she follow him?

"Now, soldier Mellark, you are here so we can discuss your future as one of the leaders of the rebellion."

"Yes ma'am."

"I'm going to keep this short soldier Mellark, next week there Is an attack scheduled in district eight, by then, Katniss should be recovered, your instructor will teach you how to hold a gun, we will get you fitted into your costume, then we need you to just shoot a few planes down so Plutarch can use it in a Propo."

"President Coin, I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I do not wish to do this, I don't want to shoot down people, no matter how much they've done, and I'm sure Katniss does not wish to either."

"Soldier Mellark!" she shouts banging her hands on to the table, Peeta jumps, his words get caught up in his throat, he says nothing.

"May I remind you that you have no say in this?" She says, bringing her voice down to a harsh whisper, which is somehow scarier than her shout.

"I am not giving you a choice, if you do not wish to follow my orders I can easily get rid of you, you are not irreplaceable."

"Execute me then! I personally, would rather die that have peoples blood on my hands! Whether they are guilty or not!"

"It's nice that you think I would only execute you, if I choose to get rid of you, then you can be sure that I will get rid of soldier Everdeen to, and her sister. Maybe even soldier Odair! And don't think we can't reach your family and friends in district twelve too, I will also make sure this execution is public and humiliating. Do you understand?"

Peeta gulped.

"Yes ma'am."


	21. Chapter 21

**note: some of you have been asking for fluff/ romance so i gave you this, :) anyway, i finished insurgent, and it ended with a MASSIVE cliffhanger its so good :D not as good as THG but still really good, speaking of which, i started a divergent trilogy fanfic called "blood before faction" it should be up soon. so if you have read divergent and stuff then go check it out :)**

**the next divergent book comes out in autumn 2013, around the same time as the catching fire movie, no doubt ill explode from all the fan girling :O**

Peeta realised that command had took half an hour, at the most when it was meant to take four hours, which meant he had three and a half hours to kill. He didn't feel as bright and jolly as he usually did, with Coins horrible threat still fresh in his mind, Peeta was afraid he'd step out of line without knowing it and Coins large guards would drag him, and everyone he loved screaming to their very "public and humiliating" executions.

Peeta wasn't going to go to the supply closet again, oh no, last time she had been almost spying on him, all the supply closet was going to give him was the false sense of security and a place where Coin could watch him slowly loose his mind. Probably with a sadistic smile on her face.

Peeta didn't like that thought.

This only left one option- visit Katniss.

This only left one problem- he had no idea where she was.

Katniss had been moved to some special room to get the wounds on her back treated so she could be a good soldier and rebellion leader, he wasn't allowed to go with her while she was being helped, which made Peeta wonder, what's so "top secret" about Katniss' back getting healed?

This train of thoughts started what would be an epic hunt for Katniss' whereabouts.

Peeta first checked the hospital. A lady informed him she wasn't there.

Then he checked the entire second floor. She wasn't there.

Then he checked all of the third floor- she wasn't there.

Then the fourth floor.

Then the fifth floor.

Then he realised that he had spent three hours just looking for her.

Then he realised that he should have just asked someone at the hospital where she was.

Then he went back to the hospital.

Then he asked someone.

Then that someone said she was on floor 184, room 7

Then he went on a five minute lift ride to floor 184.

Then he opened room 7.

Then he saw her.

She was awake and staring at her with large inquisitive grey eyes. There were many bright white bandages on her back poking out of her grey hospital gown, and a table next to her was filled with empty vials and needless, of what was probably once a collection of medicine.

Peeta gestured towards that table.

"Is it safe to have all those needles around?"

"no." she replied simply

"Oh, I thought they were meant to be "the best doctors in all of panem!" Peeta scoffed, referring to a time the staff at the hospital had shown off to them about their medical skills, a pale faced woman mentioning that she specialised in microbiology and infection control, just before smiling smugly and saying "we're not boasting or anything."

"I think they exaggerated that just a bit." Katniss smiled

"Just a tiny bit." Peeta agreed, moving to sit opposite her on the hospital bed.

"How's your treatment going?" he asked.

"it's okay, it hurt a lot at first, but now it's getting better, prim came to visit me, she gave me this cute little pin with a mockingjay on it, she said Madge wanted her to give it to me a few days before we came here, I don't really get why she wanted me to have it, but you know, made will be Madge, I could never understand her, I mean sometimes she's like, just an acquaintance, then she's my best frie-." Katniss stopped abruptly

"Sorry, I'm rambling." She said

"it's okay, I like listening to you speak." Peeta said

Peeta expected her to speak again, but she didn't, she just stared at him. It was a bit unnerving really, they just sat in this prickly silence, the tension between them screamed out.

The silence dragged on. Peeta was afraid of silence.

There was roughly twelve inches of space between them, Peeta suddenly felt like he wanted that space to vanish.

He shuffled closer. Ten inches.

She leaned in slightly. Nine inches.

He shuffled closer still. Five inches.

She shuffled a bit closer. Three inches.

He leaned in. one inch.

Their foreheads touched, Peeta felt a surge of electricity run through him. His heart thumped in his ears.

They both jumped back at the same time, like someone had poked them in the backside with a needle.

"Sorry…sorry," Katniss started, her leg was bouncing up and down, she was playing with her fingernails.

"I'm sorry too, I mean I just got a bit carried away, I don't mean like… I don't know…sorry. "Peeta stuttered, he seemed to have lose his ability to form coherent sentences and started a long mumbled explanation that Katniss couldn't understand a word of.

All at once, they both fell silent.

Their eyes met, blue on grey, Peeta wondered what it would be like to kiss her right then,

_I would if I could,_ he thought in a sort of self- pitying way.

He just didn't want to scare her away.

There it was again, the twelve inches of space that Peeta hated so much, slowly he shuffled closer, only a little bit though

Eleven and a half inches.

Katniss stayed where she was.

He shuffled closer still. His face was soft and insistent.

Eleven inches.

Ten and a half inches.

She still didn't move, she just stared at him. Her eyes wide.

_Who gives a toss about scaring her away?_ Peeta thought.

With a sudden burst of courage, he shuffled in again, a lot.

Three inches.

He leaned in.

Two inches.

He almost didn't see it, the movement was so small and slow, Peeta actually didn't see it in fact, he felt it. His hands had subconsciously moved to her waist. He had felt her move.

Their faces were so close, it would probably be socially acceptable to kiss her, but the rules of social etiquette were completely different with Katniss.

"Peeta." She gasped suddenly.

Peeta moved closer ever so slightly and softly turned her head so she was facing right. Her skin was soft under his large hands.

He kissed her cheek softly and chastely, then dropped his hand from her face and stepped backwards.

Seventy three inches.

"Goodbye Katniss." He said

Closing the door behind him, he turned and left.


	22. Chapter 22

**note: ever have those days when you feel like absolute crap and you cant do anything? yeah, I've had that for like a week and a half. so no, i'm not sorry i haven updated, because if i did it would probably be one hundred words of nonsense. however i am sorry it took me so long to get out of my funk.**

**oh and,**

**HAPPY "I SURVIVED THE APOCALYPSE DAY!"**

**There's**** a sentence in this that says "shook his hand" or something like that, so when i was checking this for mistakes i realized i had written "shanked his hand" by mistake, i laughed for like an hour. imagining Peeta just shanking some guys hand. just felt the need to share that :)**

**R&R please :P**

It was raining is district eight. The water travelled down in icy sheets, soaking Peeta, Katniss and the small crew they had assembled (which included Boggs)

District eight had a depressing air to it; even the trees looked like they were crying. The textiles district was one of the first to rebel, the capitol taught them a lesson by burning their district to the ground before you could say "down with the capitol" Peeta wondered if they had purposely left a few trees and buildings in the town centre to remind them of what once was.

Everyone's aura in district eight had a black lining to it, people walked around like the living dead, their dark grey auras desperately trying to escape the black lining of grief that locked them in place. There was a few signs pointing to the hospital which turned this way and that in the wind indecisively, Peeta studied the sign closer the colours went: mauve, blue, yellow, green, turquoise, pink, crimson and orange, all the bright colours attacking Peeta's eyes only made him feel more depressed. He squinted at it, trying to make the colours blend together to make a strange rainbow, maybe a flash of happiness would do the district good, but the colours stayed stubbornly inside the lines of the letter they were assigned to.

The attack scheduled on district eight that Coin had been planning for had obviously happened earlier than they expected, either that or they were fed false information. So they had to change the plan very quickly, they would be visiting this hospital, talking to the half dead, reassuring them (more like lying to their faces) Boggs said that they would be happy to meet the "famous" Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark

Peeta laughed in his face

Famous?

Katniss tapped him on the shoulder, bringing him out of his daydream, she pointed in the direction of the hospital (which happened to be the opposite direction to what the sign was pointing to). They trudged along silently, depression followed closely behind.

The hospital was barely a hospital, it smelled of charred flesh and looked like what used to be the hob in district twelve, he wondered if it too used to be an abandoned warehouse and they had to quickly use it as a hospital to house the many victims.

Oh yes, the capitol burned the hospital down too.

With everyone inside it.

Peeta hadn't even got inside the hospital but he could still see the black fog pouring out curling around them like smoke.

"I have a bad feeling about this place." He said, everyone jumped as he was the first one to speak in a good fifteen minutes, he wasn't thinking anyway.

"Why?" asked someone. Peeta didn't know who but their voice tasted like apples.

"The colour of its aura is all wrong." He shrugged, getting strange looks from everyone; he really said it without thinking.

A district thirteen man tore his gaze away from peeta and opened the door to the hospital, mumbling something about all the synaesthesic freaks being the cancer of district thirteen. The man thought Peeta couldn't hear.

But he did.

And he couldn't agree more.

The smell of the hospital was like a punch in the face. It was crowded, very crowded, not one person in the room didn't have even a little bit of blood on their shirts.

They looked around; most people were too busy being in pain to notice them at first.

Then the whispers started.

"Peeta Mellark?"

"Katniss Everdeen?"

"Is it really?"

Their names travelled through the crowd, being repeated like a mantra.

How do all these people know who they are?

Peeta found it funny really, it's a bit like that game they used to play in nursery, where the person at the beginning of the line whispered something to the next person,, and the next person whispered it to the next person and so on, by the time they were at the end of the line the word had completely changed.

"Peeta Mellark is here!"

"Who's Peter Muller?"

"Katniss Everdeen!"

"Who's Katie Evergreen?"

Still having no idea how these people knew who they were, and how they were having such a big effect on them, Peeta and Katniss made their way through the crowd.

People tapped them on the shoulder, effectively smearing blood on their pristine district thirteen uniforms; they thanked them for being an inspiration, looking at them with adoration in their glassy eyes.

"I had no idea we had such a big effect on people" Katniss whispered sincerely, he breath next to his ear was ticklish and Peeta shuddered slightly.

Peeta was about to nod in agreement when Boggs came between them.

"Hold hands!" He said in a harsh whisper.

When they refused to do it themselves, Boggs took their hands and linked them together; Katniss' hands felt warm in contrast to his cold ones, none of them seemed to have the strength to pull away.

"Look they're holding hands"

"Joseph told me that they got married"

Peeta saw Katniss scowl; it was amazing how people still found time to gossip in their situation.

"What do we do now" said Katniss

"I guess we mingle" Peeta replied, surveying the room.

A sixty something looking man pulled them down to eye level with him. He looked up in wonder, and put a rough hand on both their cheeks, he started out slowly, not moving his hands, then it got desperate, he touched each part of their face almost desperately, pinching Peeta's nose and running a cold hand along Katniss cheekbone. Peeta didn't have the urge to pull away; maybe it was because the black lining in his aura had visibly faded to half its original thickness.

"Is it really… you?" he asked

Katniss chuckled, everyone in the room had fallen silent, and she was still unaware.

"You better believe it." She said, shaking his hand. Peeta followed her lead and shook his hand after she let go. He had an iron grip.

"Thank you." The man said as he let go.

Peeta grinned.

"We should really be thanking you," he said as he moved off with Katniss.

…..

There was a small girl in the corner of the room while everyone laughed and chatted and tried to get their attention, she sat curled up in the corner of the room, silent tears running down her coffee coloured cheeks.

She reminded peeta of a bird.

Peeta liked birds.

Katniss seemed to like birds too, because she was gently tugging him in her direction.

They sat crossed legged opposite her.

She must have not noticed them because she carried on crying for a good minute before she looked up and gasped.

Peeta found her attempt to compose herself endearing.

"hello." Peeta said

"hi." She squeaked, her voice cracking at the end. Another tear spilled from her left eye.

"Hey now," Peeta said wiping the tear away with the back of his hands "I know my face isn't that pretty to look at but…"

The girl laughed, a short sweet found that lasted two seconds exactly, no more, no less. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katniss' lips quirk up.

"What's your name?" Katniss asked, not bothering to introduce herself, the girl probably already knew who she was.

"I'm Rue." She said

"That's a pretty name… like the flower?" Katniss asked

"Yes."

"I was named after a plant too; I guess we have something in common."

"I feel left out." Peeta said, in an attempt to lighten the mood

Katniss laughed. "Hey, being named after bread is cool to."

"What's the matter?" Peeta asked "maybe we can help you out."

Rue frowned, Peeta was afraid he was being insensitive

"My brother… p-passed." She said more tears spilled out of her eyes, she looked directly at Peeta.

Yes, he was definitely being insensitive.

"He always talked about you, he said… you were a hero, he thought everyone…. should be like you."

Peeta wanted to tell her that if everyone was like him, the world would probably be a terrible place, but he let her continue, for her brother.

"He would have loved to meet you… if he lived for just one more week." She took a deep breath "he was my hero, he wanted me to be somewhere safe, so we ran… from district 11… when the bombs came, he s-said, he always had poor judgement."

Katniss frowned.

"My dad passed when I was eleven, he was my hero too. N-nothing was ever the same again. It sounds cliché, but it gets better, he would want you to be happy."

"He just wanted this world to be a better place."

Peeta took her hand.

"We'll make it a better place, and when it is, you can say it was because of him."

"Because of him." She repeated.


	23. Chapter 23

**note: so today i was checking my emails, and i get some reviews from OpalStars for COTS which immediately made me feel bad about not updating**

**so OpalStars, thank you for inspiring me to write, this chapter is dedicated to you**

**I've**** had some major writers block lately for COTS and blood before faction, so i decided to write a hunger games AU inspired by my favorite book "the fault in our stars" by john green, it will be up after my friend finishes editing it for me.**

**so anyway, because of my major writers block, i will be calling on some ideanators again in some future chapters, thank you for staying with me.**

**sorry, this is a little rushed and it isn't edited, so expect typos**

** mkay cool, bye**

**:)**

The district thirteen guards were terrorising a man for trying to take some bread outside with him.

They looked ready to beat him to a pulp

Peeta made a mental note to never get on the bad side of any of them.

He stared down at his food; he suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore, which was just as well. The food would probably give him some serious disease. And he was pretty sure the people in district thirteen were getting cholera from the water.

He sighed and looked around the room; no one seemed to have an appetite either.

Maybe it was something in the air.

The trip to district eight went well, slightly uneventful, but at least they didn't get blown to bits like peeta had half expected.

Over the past weeks, Coin had been parading them around every district apart from one and two, sometimes, peeta thought she was just as bad as the capitol.

The only upside to being paraded around like circus freaks was that they _may_ get to go to district twelve.

If they behaved.

And the fact that Peeta and Katniss had seemed to put the citizens of panem under the impression that they were lovers.

But Peeta still wasn't sure whether that was an upside or not. Katniss certainly didn't seem to think so.

He got up and out his tray away, as he turned to walk out the door; he noticed that almost ten people had got up to go after him.

He was reminded of when he was doing tests at school, and no one wanted to be the first one to finish

He almost laughed, people were like sheep.

His almost laugh turned into a frown, it's no use thinking of district twelve, it would just get him depressed and searching for the nearest cupboard.

….

Coin could be nice sometimes.

Well, not really.

But she had her moments.

By some amazing miracle, she had let them visit district twelve

But, she had warned them that if they showed too much attachment or favouritism, there would be consequences.

Apparently, Coins "moments" didn't last very long.

they wouldn't be allowed to visit their family, basically, what they had to do was shoot a Propo and leave.

And they were shooting in the woods.

Miles away from town.

Frankly, the likelihood of meeting his family was slim to none.

…..

Peeta never liked hovercrafts.

They were loud and there wasn't much air or space, and Peeta constantly felt like the ground would open up and he would fall to his inevitable doom.

That's one reason why he was ecstatic when he was given the go ahead to descend the ladder into solid ground

The fresh air was like a punch in the face. After weeks breathing in recycled district thirteen air, the clean air of the forest was a luxury.

Katniss seemed to think so too, because she almost smiled.

Almost.

Peeta turned to the excitable capitol rebel, Plutarch.

"What do we do now?" Peeta asked

"Well, I've got a pre written speech here; you and Katniss will share the lines, and for god's sake, please try to sound enthusiastic."

Frankly, Peeta didn't know how to answer to that.

…

Two hours, a sore throat and two coffees for Plutarch later and peeta and Katniss just wanted to get out of district twelve as soon as possible.

The pre-written speech stunk, and that was peeta being nice, he didn't voice his niceness out loud though, because it looked like Plutarch and the district thirteen citizens were extremely proud of their stupid speech.

Neither Peeta, nor Katniss could act enthusiastic for the life of them

It was a terrible speech, although Plutarch was obviously extremely proud of it. It was long and un-engaging, and even the "big finish" line was terrible. Cressida was getting extremely annoyed and kept complaining that the light was changing; Katniss kept getting anxious because she couldn't shoot the animals scurrying past them in the woods.

"I give up!" Plutarch said finally, throwing his coffee to the ground in exasperation.

"Me too." Cressida agreed. Plutarch looked at her like she'd done something wrong.

"You know what, screw this!" Katniss said "these fake speeches and stupid costumes can never describe what's going on in the districts! I saw it, the children were so used to seeing blood in district eight that it didn't even bother them!"

Katniss took a deep breath

"What the capitol need to know Is that they will not get away with this. In district twelve, people from the seam are seen as second class citizens, and to people still stuck in the delusion that they are, I say this. In the eyes of the capitol we are _all_ second class citizens, and if we burn, they burn with us!"

"And cut!" Cressida says "it's perfect, and the lighting brings out all of your best features, and this I sure to get loads of people on our side!"

Katniss looked completely and utterly shocked

"You were filming that?" she said

And Peeta laughed, actually laughed, loudly and fully, chest clenching, doubling over in fits of giggles.

"What's your problem?" Katniss spat

"It's just… this… is so cliché!" peeta said, in-between more laughter

"I guess it is…" Katniss said, giving him a half smile, like someone had tied a sting to the right corner of her lip and pulled it right up, her aura shone brighter than ever, her voice tasted just a little bit sweeter.

"Do you know what would be even more cliché? If we all, 'erupted in a fit of giggles' right now."

Everyone (including Plutarch) erupted in a fit of giggles. Peeta smiled triumphantly, there was a high pitched noise coming from the direction of district twelve, almost as if it was laughing with them.

"It sounds like the district is laughing." Mused Cressida "I bet it's laughing at your joke Peeta"

Peeta chuckled.

Katniss began to scream.

Because that's when the bombs dropped.


End file.
